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A HAJ1ELE33 Hovel 

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"ELEANOR. GWYNN, Etc. Etc. 


NEW YORK 

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State 



A NAMELESS NOVEL 


/ 

<v//™ 


\ 


' M. G. MCCLELLAND 

AUTHOR OF ‘ ‘ OBLIVION,” “PRINCESS/’ “BURKETT’S 
LOCK,” “ELEANOR GWYNN," ETC., ETC. 





NEW YORK 

S. H. MOORE & COMPANY 

27 PARK PLACE 



Copyright , 1891 

By S. H. Moore and Company 
All Rights Reserved 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Mountain Mirage ... 5 

II. Tubal-Cain 17 

III. Deane’s Red Mare .... 24 

IV. At The Iron-Works . . . .35 

V. “ To Tread Turf Again, Old 

Horse” 44 

VI. Shaking a Chestnut Tree . . 53 

VII. Joyce’s Lovers 65 

VIII. A Scotch Valentine ... 72 

IX. “ From Off’n Tuckahoe . . .76 

X. Jim Trotter’s Tight Place . . 83 

XI. Ranke’s “Ha’rnt” .... 94 

XII. The Ugliness of Silence . . .110 

XIII. Deane Versus the Devil . . 119 

XIV. Things Likely to Influence a 

Jury 126 

XV. Lawyer Meredith .... 140 

XVI. Midnight Musing .... 153 

XVII. The Manitoba Family Hear the 

News 162 

XVIII. How Joyce Takes It . . .177 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


XIX. Tuckahoe “ Co’te-House ” . . 192 

XX. “ I Know’d He Were P’isenous ’ . 207 

XXI. “Gentlemen of the Jury, Do Your 

Duty” 223 

XXII. The Ruby Heart .... 234 

XXIII. Joyce’s Mind is Made Up . . . 237 


XXIV. “All’s Well That Ends Well” . 241 


9 


- CHAPTER I. 

THE MOUNTAIN MIRAGE. 

The mystical day in February had passed; the 
ground-hog had come out, cast a weather eye aloft 
and around, humped his gray back, and retired to 
his hole for another six weeks. After that for eight 
days it rained ceaselessly,' and with scant variation. 
The water fell straight, from low clouds, or hurried 
before the wind in long swaths, which seemed to 
pile on one another, give way in the lower strata, 
and tumble down the mountain-side with tumult. 
The pines held their heads high, making believe not 
to mind; but the leafless branches of oak, hickory, 
hemlock and ash, destitute of aught wherewith to 
hide their nakedness, bent and shivered unreserv- 
edly. When the rain held up for an hour together, 
mist gathered in the ravines, rolled upward and 
blanketed the summit of Tuckahoe Mountain. 
Among the fastnesses every surcharged spring 
brimmed its basin and flung its overplus down- 
ward; the rivulets and streams were swollen to tor- 
rents, and in the valleys the floods were out. 


This for seven days, and on the eighth, between 
sun-up and mid-day, the weather lifted. 

At eleven o’clock Wolfe Ranke came out of his 
cabin and looked about him. He was a small man, 
nearing middle life, but muscular and wiry as a 
wild-cat. His black hair curled closely, and his 
complexion was swarthy, but his eyes were a curious 
light steely blue, and looked out from under pent- 
house brows with the fixety of gaze peculiar to 
denizens of solitudes. Their expression seldom 
varied, except when cunning flitted, bat-wise, 
across them, or anger caused the pupils to contract 
and scintillate, like flames licking through dead 
wood. He was a somber man, seldom moved to 
mirth, which was held to be a blessing by nervous 
folks, for the sound of his laughter was arid, and his 
lips curled back from his teeth curiously, disclosing 
gums of singular aspect, not healthily red, as is 
seemly in gums, but purplish blue, like a bruise be- 
fore it begins to turn green and yellow. Ranke’s 
mirth was so unlovely that it was never rashly pro- 
voked. 

“ It p’intly do give me the all-overs to see Ranke 
grin with them p’isen blue gums o’ his’n,” Toby 
Blake, the blacksmith, complained. “ I can’t git shet 
o’ ther notion thet he mout take an idee to bite 
some o’ we-all some day.” 

“ He ain’t never done nothin’ hos tile yit,” observed 
the store-keeper on whose premises the criticism was 
made. “ An’ he’ve lived over yonder on Tuckahoe 
risin’ fifteen ye’r. He come to this kentry fust in 
bush-whackin’ day ’long o’ his dad, an’ arter Seces- 


THE MOUNTAIN MIRAGE. 


7 


sion bu’st up he come back by hisse’f an’ bought Ian’ 
an’ settled. He ain’t never bit nobody, as I’ve hearn 
tell, nor offered to bite none.” 

The store-keeper was a politic man and never al- 
lowed a paying customer to be run down in his pres- 
ence. 

Toby laughed. “ ’Tain’t nobody made him bitin’ 
mad yit,” he explained. “ An’ ’tain’t nobody liable 
to, n’other. ‘ Blue-gums ’ air danger’us critters to 
handle, an’ folks handles ’em keerful. I’d as leif 
ram my naked fist out to a rattlesnake as sass a 
‘blue-gum.’ ” 

^He glanced around convincingly, and one or two 
of the other store loungers nodded. The superstition 
as to the virulence of the bite of a person with gums 
discolored as Ranke’s were was as firmly rooted as 
pines in the bucolic min^. Half the men in the 
store had authentic and variously substantiated 
narratives to relate of “ blue gums ” who had bitten 
people in anger, and in every case the victim was 
described as perishing therefrom in hideous agony. 

“ But I ’lowed the p’isenous sort o’ 6 blue-gums ’ 
was niggers,” objected a bystander, who was sus- 
pected among his fellows of iconoclastic proclivities, 
and was therefore unpopular. 

Toby Blake answered shortly: “ Thar ain’t but one 
sort o’ ‘ blue-gum,’ as ever I hearn on, an’ thet is the 
p’isenous sort. As to nigger blood, thet’s n’other 
here nor thar. A sight mo’ folks hev got a black 
drop, nigh by, or fur off, ’en is gin’ally had it fast- 
ened on ’em. I ain’t namin’ no names an’ I ain’t 
makin’ no ackerzations — only gums is gums, an’ / 


ain’t never see’d no right full-blooded white man 
whar could show a mouf persizely like Ranke’s.” 

“He have got a high nose, howsumever, an’ eyes 
like faded blue caliker,” objected the iconoclast 
stoutly. “ You can’t prove no black drop on Ranke 
that’n way.” 

“I ain’t gwine to try,” Blake declared. “I ain’t 
gwine to set up no cross-firin’ with a ‘ blue-gum ’ ’bout 
nothin’. Folks whar’s so high-larnt,” with a wither- 
ing glance, “ thet they can’t kornsent to believe in 
nothin’, kin talk any sort o’ truck they gits ready. 
All ther word I’ve got to say is thet ‘ blue-gums ’ air 
damned danger ’us.” 

In which opinion the neighborhood fully sustained 
him. 

As for Ranke, he seemed unconscious of his power, 
or indifferent to what might be made of it. He was 
guilty of no effort to terrorize the district, or play 
the part of a despot; he even refrained from scaring 
the women and children. Perhaps his moderation 
was due to lack of ambition, or indifference to noto- 
riety, or perhaps he divined that canine demonstra- 
tions would speedily be put down with a shot-gun. 
Whatever his motive, certain it is that, for years, he 
lived as peaceable a life as though his gums were of 
the legitimate color. 

He was unmarried, no hill maiden having yet 
evinced sufficient courage and devotion to rise above 
the superstitious terror his mouth inspired, or over- 
get the aversion engendered by the taint of blood 
accredited him. Ranke appeared to bear up under 
the loneliness of his lot astonishingly, however^, and 


THE MOUNTAIN MIRAGE. 


9 

went and came among the people little, or much, 
according to his liking. 

Standing in his door-yard, he looked along the 
mountain, and aloft at the surrounding peaks with 
the alert glance and minute observation of a hunter. 

/The sun shone, making the most of a propitious in- 
terval; the soaked earth steamed, despite a warning 
chill in the air; there were plenty of clouds about 
still, but they drifted uncertainly, as if not quite 
decided as to their next demonstration; what wind 
was astir came from the northeast. 

“ Thar ’ll be sleet afore long,” Ranke thought. 
“ The wind’s whetted up middlin’ sharp an’ edgy. 
Sleet, or snow, one. Six weeks mo’ failin’ weather 
air to be, or ole ground-hog’s a liar. ’Twill aim to 
swop around an’ drap some o’ all sorts, I reckon.” 

The clearing in which Ranke’s cabin stood was 
divided into a corn-field or two and a bit of pasture. 
With even moderate cultivation the land would have 
been productive, for it was good, dark loam, which 
would grow anything put into it, provided the crops 
were not simply planted and left more or less to 
chance, which was a good deal Ranke’s method. 
Slack as he undoubtedly was, however, in farming 
matters, the “blue-gum” never seemed to lack 
money; he never had any surplus to sell, yet was 
always, apparently, above want, the pinch of “hard- 
times,” or the necessity for overt exertion. Ranke’s 
unexplainable solvency was one of the things about 
him which bothered the community. 

Behind the house the hill sloped upward, heavily 
wooded above, but in the lower parts roughly 


cleared in spots where Ranke had cnt fire-wood. 
One of these clearings, to the left of the cornfield, 
rounded to the shoulder of the mountain. It was 
covered with scrub, left cumbering the ground 
when the heavier growth had been cut away, a sort 
of jungly chaparral , but in no place high enough to 
conceal a man on horseback. Through it wound 
the woods road which linked the little homestead 
with civilization. From in front the land fell away 
in a gentle slope, which slipped finally into a ravine, 
through which ran a river, of no great importance 
ordinarily, but swollen now to a torrent. The 
sound of its roaring came up to Ranke where he 
stood and caused him to mutter, sotto voce: “ Ther 
water’s gwine on like a shook-up hornet’s nes’. 
’Twill be mighty interruptions to travel, I reckon. 
Deane Rutherford won’t git here to-day. Even thet 
mare o’ his’n couldn’t breast it. I wonder if thar’s 
much float runnin’ ?” 

He walked down to the rail-fence which enclosed 
his domain and leaned against it, looking over. A 
couple of deer-hounds which accompanied him nosed 
gravely about, one of them nimbly scaling the fence 
to pursue his investigations on the other side. The 
river was plainly visible, tearing along in a turbid 
flood, stained with soil and ladened with trash, logs, 
and debris of all sorts. It foamed and curled in 
places where its passage was opposed by the jutting 
upward of rocks, or the trunks of trees, erstwhile on 
its margin, but now nearly in mid-current. It 
boiled and circled into eddies and whirlpools, and 
went on its way with a gurgling, snarling roar, 


THE MOUNTAIN MIRAGE. 


1 1 


like a creature half choked, and worrying over its 
food. 

From the clearing a trail zig-zagged down to what, 
in low water, was a fording-place, crossed over, and 
snaked up the opposite slope, humoring the rise, as 
a trail must. It was an old trail, very well defined 
and much used by. the mountain folk for crossing 
over into North Carolina. It circled around Ranke’s 
fence and merged into the road through the chap- 
arral, making of the little farm a peninsular partial- 
ly encircled by highways. 

The storm clouds had withdrawn a space, but in 
the distance they seemed to be drawing together, 
like troops mustering with serious intent. Close at 
hand the rain-washed atmosphere was so fine and 
pure that it seemed to offer no obstruction to sight. 
The practiced vision of the mountaineer could fol- 
low the windings of the trail upward through the 
denuded forest for miles. Tolerably high up a 
lightning-riven poplar stood amid gray bowlders, 
showing a scarred side from which the bark had 
been ripped, and a skeleton limb or two, like arms, 
leprous and withered. This tree was the favorite 
rendezvous of buzzards, and, even as Ranke looked, 
a couple of the hideous creatures circled slowly into 
his plane of vision, descended in lessening spirals 
and found their point of repose upon it. The “ blue- 
gum ” swore fretfully. He had a special disgust for 
buzzards. Sitting aloft with necks outstretched and 
half-expanded wings, they seemed to overlook him 
and his belongings and to have him’ at advantage. 
“Look-like the stinkin’ critters air alius hankerin’ 


12 


arter a meal o’ vittels off’n me or my truck,” he was 
wont to declare. 

His glance left the birds and came back to the 
river, which he regarded aggressively, as though re- 
senting malicious interference with some arrange- 
ment. 

“ Deane ’low’d he’d come,” he ruminated. “An’ he 
gin’ally aims to rivet his word. This here infernal 
high-water mout hold him back though. Him an’ 
me ain’t no pertick’ler chums, an’ he mout left good- 
bye at ther sto’ well as not. I’d like to have that 
red mare, durned if I wouldn’t. Sound she is, an’ 
active; swift as a blue streak too. Jus’ the critter 
for my trade. Deane’s such a sappy fool! Settin’ 
store by a horse like she war a human. Wouldn’t 
take no price, he said. ’Lowed his dad had gi’n her 
to him jus’ afore he pegged out, an’ he’d raised her 
up from a colt. Deane’s plumb soft an’ redic’l’us! 
’Lowin’ ’bout lovin' a horse outside’n what she’s 
wuth. Wonder what he’s gwine to do with her 
down at them Machine- Works he’s gwine to? Bet- 
ter let me have her, ’en sell her down thar. I won- 
der ” Through his eyes glanced the furtive 

look which was one of their few changes; there was 
a break in his thoughts. 

Down from the opposite heights floated the sound 
of a bell, chiming clear and resonant. It held itself 
above and aloof from the roar of the water, an indi- 
vidual sound, dominant, and in no wise to be blended 
with the monotone of the flood. Ranke started and 
stared about him, shrinking a little, and supersti- 
tiously bewildered and nervous. Where did it come 


THE MOUNTAIN MIR AGE. 


13 


from ? Out of the air ?- — out of the infinite ? What 
did it mean ? It sounded like the bell of the church 
in the valley near which he had lived in his child- 
hood. His mother had taken him to that church 
many a Sunday, and he had perched miserably 
enough on a narrow, straight-backed bench and 
blinkingly watched a handsome old gentleman in 
a white gown toss his arms about and point with 
his fingers. He had hated those Sunday ordeals; 
but the sound of the bell had been sweet, floating 
down the valley to the place where they lived. He 
had loved to hearken to its invitation as much as he 
had loathed that which followed acceptance. 

What could have brought the thought of that beh 
to his mind ? — the sound of it to his ears ? Could he, 
be mistaken ? No, there it was again — ringing fully, 
ringing clearly, shaking out notes rich and mellow 
as from a throat of silver. The very dogs heard it 
and stood with muzzles uplifted and ears cocked at 
attention, as though seeking to solve the mystery! 

Ranke’s face showed a troubled expression; the 
sweat stood on his forehead. He could not make it 
out, either its character, or its meaning. Being 
ignorant, he was, perforce, superstitious. The un- 
explainable was, for him, the supernatural. His pre- 
vious experience in this place showed no parallel. 
Church bells had never rung for him before from a 
bare mountain side. The thing must be a sign— 
a warning — but of what ? 

The man’s sense of humor was deficient. The 
idea of supernatural interposition for his behoof did 
not strike him as incongruous. Being to himself the 




_ f — 


true center of the universe, his small affairs seemed 
preponderant — of universal importance. All the 
same, however, he was not grateful for spiritual 
solicitude; he was frightened and restive; there 
were prickly sensations in his flesh, as though his 
garments were lined with nettles; his blood seemed 
to chill and move slowly; he wanted to curse for re- 
lief, but his tongue refused its office. 

After a moment’s perturbed scrutiny of the mount- 
ain side, during which the bell continued its mystic 
invocation, Ranke’s face cleared, the chill departed 
from his blood and the terror from his mind. He 
spat on the ground contemptuously and muttered 
“I’ll be dogged!” in accents of relief mingled with 
downright self-scorn. 

Into the line of view, along the old trail, a horse- 
man was riding. The sun shone on his horse, giv- 
ing a sheen of satiny sorrel on his simple accoutre- 
ments, striking out reflections from the metal mount- 
ings of the long rifle across the saddle-bow, the 
handle of the hunting knife in the belt, and even 
from the mare’s shoes as she picked her feet up. 
Ranke broke into a laugh, curling his lips back and 
showing his singular gums. He smote his thigh 
resonantly, and voiced his satisfaction aloud: 

“ ’Tain’t nothin’ but that fool Deane Rutherford 
/ cuttin’-up monkey-shines arter all ! An’ me skeer’d 
nigh into an’ agur like a mink a-lookin’ at his own 
eyes in a glass bottle. Deane’s done made hisse’f a 
bell an’ hitched it onto his bridle, an’ ’s gwine bang- 
in’ an’ blatin’ through ther woods settin’ folks study- 
in’ ’bout Jedgment an’ all sich. He’s .alius tinkerin’ 


THE MOUNTAIN MIRAGE. 


15 


at some foolishness at the forge — wastin’ time an’ 
metal. I wonder ther mare don’t fling him. I wish 
to Gawd she would.” This last delivered viciously 
and with reminiscent anger at his own alarm. He 
would keep that to himself, however. Deane should 
not have the laugh on him. 

Then he fell to wondering how the crossing would 
be made, and turned his glance once more to the 
river. The water hurled along its drift impetuously, 
eager to get below, as it seemed, and take a hand in 
the valley destruction. Fording, or even swimming, 
was out of the question. The only course open to 
the would-be visitor appeared to be a return along 
the home trail. “ Mout as well er come ther long 
way at fust,” Ranke commented peevishly. 

When he lifted his eyes to the mountain again the 
horsemen had disappeared. The bell too had ceased 
chiming. The hill-side, moist and dank, rose silent 
and deserted; the old trail wound its tortuous way 
among the trees in full sight. Ranke stared and 
rubbed his eyes. What could have become of them ? 
At his last look the sorrel mare had been stepping 
out into the open near the ford. There was not a 
tree there bulky of trunk enough to hide a mounted 
man. What new trick was this ? 

Then the dogs began to bark with the sudden 
access of vigilance which presages a visitor. The 
hound on the inside of the fence loped away, giving 
tongue; the hound on the outside cleared the ob- 
struction at a bound, caught up with his speeding 
fellow, and raced him tumultuously across the lot to 
the road through the chaparral. A succession of 


clear whistles and calls cleft the air, and a tall young 
fellow in homespun, begirt with a belt, but unarmed, 
strode forward on foot, laid his hand on the top rail 
of the fence and lifted his body over it with a sinu- 
ous spring. The dogs met him clamorously, but 
without hostile intent; they scented an acquaintance 
in Deane Rutherford. 

Ranke stood motionless, his slow glance shifting 
from the mountain-side to the advancing figure and 
back again. Which was real, and which semblance ? 
A moment since he could have sworn that Deane 
Rutherford was coming toward him on the farther 
side of the torrent riding his sorrel mare, and now 
here was the same man coming toward him from a 
totally different direction on foot. What did it 
mean ? Had he seen a ghost ? But ghosts are not 
usually abroad by daylight. Then a thought came 
to him which set his superstitious soul to shivering 
and brought the cold drops again to his forehead. 
He understood it now. This fellow coming across 
the lot gayly whistling to the prancing dogs was the 
real man — the other had been an illusion — a mi- 
rage. 

His soul sickened and fainted with fear; he looked 
and felt, for a moment, like a man who has witnessed 
the signing of his own death warrant. He whis- 
pered a fierce oath, huskily, in a throat as dry as a 
lime-kiln. 


T UBAL-CA IN. 


17 


CHAPTER II. 

TUBAL-CAIN. 

Ranke had no more knowledge of atmospheric 
than of emotional and imaginative possibilities. 
That which seemed manifested to his bodily vision 
he accepted on prima facie evidence, without argu- 
ment, or any attempt at practical explanation. The 
belief that a sight such as had been accorded to him 
presages calamity is as firmly rooted in the minds 
of hill dwellers as is the belief in a future of mate- 
rial bliss and material burning. Why should Ranke 
kick against that which was accepted by his world 
as verity. He did not. He thrust the whole thing 
away with precipitation, and advanced to meet and 
welcome his guest with a boisterous show of cordi- 
ality and interest. 

‘‘Howdy, Deane! Howdy!” shaking hands with 
effusion. “I’d in-about gi’n you out, /long o’ rain 
an’ freshets an’ sich-like. How’d you git here ?” 
The question had almost a coercive tone. 

He had come to Jim Trotter’s the night before, 
the young fellow explained. The river had been 
crossable then; the back water had come down in 
the night. He was going the rounds among his old 
acquaintances, bidding farewell to all before he 
went down to the valley to try his luck among 


i8 




strangers in a strange city. It might be a good 
while before he could get back to see them, so he 
wanted to shake hands around with everybody he 
knew. The lad’s tone was cheerful. He was about 
to break no very strong ties, and love of adventure 
and hope in the untried are dominant at nineteen. 

“ Air you walkin’ ?” 

Ranke had preceded his guest into the cabin, and 
was stirring the fire, laying on fresh logs, and cov- 
ering them with chips and dry wood. The light 
from the open doorway fell upon it so that the 
flames looked pallid and put out of countenance. 
Ranke shut it. 

The young fellow nodded in reply to his host’s 
question. He had loaned his mare the day before 
to Mr. Voss, the valley man who was stopping at the 
smithy. Voss had wanted to ride across to Tucka- 
hoe Cove, where some fellows had promised to get 
up a deer hunt for him. He — Deane — would have 
gone himself, but for wanting to tell the folks good- 
bye. Then he broke out about his plans exuber- 
antly, not because he felt any special friendliness 
for Ranke, or any particular desire to distinguish 
him by confidence, but because he was young and 
full of himself, and so confident that the whole world 
must be interested in that which filled heaven and 
earth for him. A week ago he had told Ranke that 
he would include him in the farewell round, and it 
was because of that promise he was here. He felt 
sorry for Ranke, cooped up among the hills away 
from all the possibilities of life. He felt sorry for 
everybody who was not going down to Montaubon 


TUBAL-CAIN. 


*9 


with Mr. Voss to be entered at his Machine- Works 
and given a chance to learn and to do. That was 
all he had ever wanted — a chance. And now it had 
come he was exultant, and sorry for those rniser- 
ables who appeared so content to be left behind. 

Everything had changed for him since this party 
of valley sportsmen had come up to the mountains 
after big game. There were four in the party, but 
the blacksmith’s wife could only accommodate one 
in the little roof -room where he, himself, slept. The 
smith’s own family bid fair to exceed the habitable 
space in his domicile ere long, and there had really 
seemed no place of lodgment even for one until he 
had volunteered to occupy a pallet on the roof-room 
floor, for the nonce, giving up his own bed to the 
stranger. So Mr. Voss had come to them, and the 
rest of the party quartered themselves where they 
could. Mr. Voss was partner in a big iron manufac- 
turing plant down at Montaubon, where they made 
all sorts of machines such as he — Deane — had never 
seen in his life, or even dreamed of. 

. He had always had a hankering after making 
things, and working in metal, as far back as he could 
remember. It was for this reason that he had trans- 
ferred himself and his few head of stock to the black- 
smith’s cabin and pastures after death had broken 
up his own home. It had seemed to him that the 
hammer and forge might supply that which he 
needed. His few acres of homestead he had rented 
to a neighbor, with his house and rude plenishing 
just as it stood. This had been three years ago, and 
during that time he had wrought in the forge like 


20 




Tubal-Cain, striving to get at knowledge by inspira- 
tion. It had not taken him many months to acquire 
all Toby Blake’s skill, and to turn out better smith’s 
work than his preceptor. But that was not what he 
wanted. Anybody could make and set a horseshoe, 
hammer nails and' bolts, and forge, or mend the 
simple implements in daily use and demand. Deane’s 
restlessness had returned, harrying him, like a pent- 
up force seeking an outlet. The forge was inade- 
quate — or rather there was none here to teach him 
how to make it so. 

Then Mr. Voss had come, like a sluice-master, to 
open the gates, and let the force work to legitimate 
ends. Deane, to use his own term, “ took a notion ” 
to Mr. Voss at once, and cheerfully put himself out 
of the way to show the stranger civility. He had 
shown him the likeliest stands for waiting while the 
beaters drove the deer down from the fastnesses, 
had discovered to him the haunts of pheasant and 
partridge, had taken him by dawn-light to his own 
particular turkey-blind, and, deepest proof of good- 
will, had made him welcome to the use of his mare, 
a beautiful animal who was the joy of his heart and, 
as yet, sole mistress of his affections. 

In requital of all this Mr. Voss had led the lad on 
to talk of himself, his unrest, his ignorance and his 
aspirations. He had hearkened understanding^ to 
Deane’s crude ideas, and had viewed his crude in- 
ventive efforts without denominating them “fool- 
ishness ” and “projeckin’.” So it had come to pass 
that one morning as the pair huddled together in 
the turkey-blind before daylight waiting for those 


T U BA L- C A IN. 


21 


wary birds to come down from the wilds for their 
breakfast, Mr. Voss had proposed that Deane should 
return with him to Montaubon and take a position 
in the shops. He spoke of wages and terms of ap- 
prenticeship, but all that had been babble in 
Deane’s ears. He had clutched at his chance with- 
out regard to details, and, in his exuberance, had 
bounced to his feet behind the brushwood, which 
served as a blind, with so much activity to behold a 
suddenly glorified world, that a flock of wild turkeys, 
led by a couple of vigilant gobblers, who were steal- 
ing cautiously down to the feeding-place, paused, 
held themselves an instant on one foot, with the 
other uplifted and doubled into a fist, and then got 
them back into the forest with marvelous celerity. 

By the blacksmith’s advice he held an auction of 
his stock and household gear, most of which Blake 
cannily bought in for himself at reduced rates, but 
all offers for the sorrel mare were stoutly refused. 
When asked what he meant to do with her. Deane 
replied, take her with him; and when additionally 
scoffed at for supposing that to keep a horse in the 
city was, for a poor working man, as simple a mat- 
ter as keeping one in the mountains, he waxed pep- 
pery, and bade the people mind their own business. 
To work for a horse was quite as easy as to work 
for a wife, he maintained, and turned a deaf ear to 
their laughter. Deane was a strong-willed young 
fellow, and hot-tempered, as are most workers in 
metal. He was popular, too, and the people were 
sorry to have him go. away. 

Blake voiced the general sentiment, the day of 


22 


9 — 


Deane’s sale, to a knot of men gathered about the 
smithy. 

“ Deane air peppery with his tongue an’ rank 
with his fists whenst his monkey’s up,” that worthy 
averred, feeling called on to give his whilom asso- 
ciate his due because of the good bargains he had 
made out of him. “ But thar ain’t a mite o’ mean- 
ness in ther chap frum top-knot to boot-sole. He 
air fiery, but he air true, an’ he forges in-about as 
well as any lot o’ metal I ever sot hand to. Deane 
ain’t nobody’s fool nother, as thet thar valley man 
knows same as I does. He ain’t tolein’ Deane off 
’long o’ relishment fur his comp’ny. He air tolein’ 
him bekase thar’s truck in ther boy — truck whar’ll 
work up well fur market. Ther valley man, he 
knows now — an’ I reckon Deane’ll find out.” 

This last was certainly what Deane Rutherford 
proposed to do. 

After the young fellow’s plans had been exhaus- 
tively canvassed, even down to the time of his start, 
which was to be at noon the following day, Ranke 
proposed to his guest that they should step outside 
and take a look at the weather. 

It had clouded over again; the sky was leaden, in 
hue like wet limestone; the crest of the mountain 
was hidden; the wind sighed sharply among the 
gorges.' The roar of the water was subdued, as 
though the sound were held down and flattened. On 
the blasted poplar limb the buzzards still roosted, 
but with closed wings and necks drawn in to the 
shoulders, as though the season were unpropitious 
for social amenities. The cocks and hens in the 


TUBAL-CAIN 


2 3 


door-yard, of which Ranke kept a goodly assort- 
ment, had sheltered under the steps and the ash- 
hopper, and one old rooster, more weather-wise than 
his fellows, was escorting his own immediate female 
following into the hen-house. The atmosphere had a 
. ting and tingle added to its rawness which suggest- 
ed that the moisture it held might be turning to ice. 

Deane proposed taking his departure at once, but 
Ranke overruled him. 

“ Take dinner long o’ me,” he hospitably pro- 
posed. “ It’s soon in the day an’ mighty liable to 
clear afore sun-down. Thar’s gwine to be a little 
flurry o’ snow, or sleet, tereckly, an’ you’ll be 
ketched good if you start right now. The nigh-cut 
home air blocked by the freshet. It’s in-about five 
mile to the smithy the way you’ve got to travel. 
Stop an’ git a mouffull o’ vittles afore you start.” 

Deane glanced about uncertainly. He was in two 
minds about the matter. 

“Thar’s a rooster — a big, fat one — roastin' in the 
oven, with sweet-taters an’ pork banked up a-side o’ 
him,” the host observed casually. “ He must be in- 
about done by now, an I kin fling in an’ ash-cake in 
a minute. Thar’s some tasty cider in the bar 1 too — 
got a beady head to it, sich as ain’t common. Stop 
to dinner an’ sample it.” 

Thus allured, Deane consented. He had break- 
fasted before daylight, and it was now past noon. 
His inner man fairly ravened. He knew Ranke ’s 
culinary skill of old, and held the opinion that not a 
woman in the district had a tastier hand at season- 
ing, or a superior knack at basting and browning. 


CHAPTER III. 


deane’s red mare. 

By the time dinner had been despatched and the 
dishes stored away it was raining again, with a 
strong dash of sleet. Deane opened the door and 
stared out inquiringly. The out-put from above 
was regular and gave promise of holding. 

From the cabin eaves water, mingled with ice, 
shot with a rattle and swish ; along the edges of the 
shingles icicles were forming. 

Travel seemed uninviting and Deane returned 
to the hearth, where he leaned backward against 
the rough mantel and toasted his booted legs. 
He would wait a bit before breasting the ele- 
ments. The stuff falling outside might turn to 
snow presently, which would not be so unpleasant 
to walk in — he hated the sting of sleet in his face. 
He was a well-grown fellow, but loose-knit and 
coltish yet, as became his youth. When he should 
have filled out and compacted he would be a man of 
unusual size and strength. His face was intelligent 
and a trifle rugged, the chin square, the nostrils thin 
and sensitive, the eyes of a clear, warm hazel. 

Opposite him, as he stood, was the open parallel- 
ogram of the cabin window, ill-fitting, and glazed 
with small, libelous panes, of a quality rich only in 


DEANES RED MARE. 


2 5 


defects. Nature, viewed through this medium, was 
distorted to a caricature and well-nigh turned upside 
down. Deane speedily wearied of the outlook and, 
after a little, he yawned, not with discourteous in- 
tention, but obeying a natural impulse. Ranke, who 
was whittling a trigger for a disabled rabbit-trap, 
put up his knife and bit of wood and proposed a 
game of cards. 

“ 'Twill he’p time along ’twell it clears up,” he 
affirmed, as one aroused to the requirements of 
hospitality. “ This here’s a mighty say-nothin’ 
house fur young folks, bein’ as thar ain’t no women - 
critters about, an’ me gittin’ into lonesome ways 
livin’ ’long o’ myself. Ole Sledge mout keep you 
from plumb-crackin’ yer jaw-bone in two.” 

Deane laughed and assented. He counted him- 
self a knowing hand at the favorite local amusement 
of “ seven-up.” 

While Ranke turned an empty flour-barrel on end 
to serve as a card-table, set chairs, and rummaged 
in his cupboard for a pack of cards, Deane stirred 
up the fire and replenished it, settling the logs into 
place with sundry well-directed applications of his 
boot-heel. 

“ Thar’s the tongses,’ Ranke suggested, without 
looking around. “ They mout save yer leather from 
scorchin’, I reckon.” 

“ An’ pinch my fingers clean off’n me,” Deane 
commented, regarding with disfavor the implement 
in question, a master-piece of iniquity with a limber 
joint and knobbed head, which stood in the chim- 
ney corner and tempted men to their destruction. 


2 6 


f — 


“ Them thar air the no-countest, onreliablest, vicious- 
est tongses in the distric’. An’ the man whar han- 
dles ’em air gwine to git sorry fur it mighty quick. 
Las’ time I was here I ondertook to heft up a log 
with ’em, an' I’ll bedogged if they didn’t twirl right 
over an’ nip on-ter my thumb same as a tarrier grab- 
bin’ a rat. Pinched up a right smart blood-blister, 
they did.” 

“ R’iled you mightily, too, didn’t it ? ” 

The host’s tone was amused, but pacific. The 
depreciation of his household goods did not wound 
him; in sooth he was conscious that from nibs to 
hinge the construction of his tongs was evil, while 
for the malevolence of its trick of twisting there 
could be neither palliation nor defence. The sole 
use he himself ever put the tongs to was that of a 
hammer, for which the heavy iron knob finishing off 
the top seemed peculiarly adapted. 

“ Mad as a hornet,” Deane acquiesced cheerfully. 
“ I tried my levelest to wring ’em in two, but thar 
j’int was too tough for me. Whyn’t you fetch ’em 
to the shop an’ git ’em fixed, Ranke ? They ain’t 
nothing but a torment.” He was going to, Ranke 
explained, only he kept forgetting it. The knob 
was handy for knocking in nails and such like, when 
his hammer was out of place. It “ could hit a plumb 
lick.” Ranke was busy at his cupboard, and only 
half attending. Old Sledge and whiskey were 
wedded in his thought in indissoluble union. He 
had set out a quart bottle and was now hunting for 
tumblers. “ Toddy, or straight ? ” he questioned, 
consulting his guest. 


i 


BEANE'S RED MARE. 


27 


“ Toddy, thank’ee,” was the response. “ I ain’t 
got much head for liquor, nohow.” 

Ranke supplied sugar and water and compounded 
the mixture. He usually took his liquor au natural , 
but this time, in deference to hospitality, he diluted. 
While he busied himself with the brew, Deane 
ranged up alongside the barrel and shuffled the 
cards. 

“ Cut for deal.” 

He extended the pack as he spoke. 

For the next half hour the silence was unbroken, 
save by the verbal requirements .of the game; the 
alternations of “beg,” “stand,” “give ye one,” and 
the reckoning of the score. 

The stakes, at first, were small, but the players 
were well matched, and, as the interest deepened 
and the liquor disappeared, the amount of the money 
staked increased. Deane was flush, having been 
paid up part of the purchase money of his gear with 
reasonable promptitude. He had in his pocket 
seventy-five dollars, a sum which to his inexperience 
appeared inexhaustible. Ranke seemed also well 
vamped, but, after the first game or two, luck set . 
against him. Five times in succession Deane got 
out in two deals, holding “high,” “low,” and “jack” 
every time. The veins showed on Ranke’s forehead, 
and once or twice he swore under his breath. Deane 
was flushed with victory and the liquor was mount- 
ing to his head. He craved success, and it excited 
him. 

Outside the rain had ceased utterly and snow was 
falling; but neither man noticed the change. 


28 




Presently Ranke got up, crossed to a niche in the 
wall and took therefrom a dirty shot-bag tied around 
the mouth with a leather shoe-string. This he set 
on the table beside his elbow, and the game went 
on. It was Ranke’s deal and the score stood three 
to four, Ranke being in the lead this time. The 
cards fell rapidly and again fortune favored Deane, 
who went out with a rush. 

“ ’Tain’t no use playin’ agin such luck,” Ranke 
growled discontentedly. “ Ther devil air a-backin’ 
you, or you’ve got a cut-throat mortgage on ther 
cards. I dunno which. I’ve got a good notion to 
pull out an’ quit” 

Deane laughed boisterously. 

“ I wouldn’t,” he asserted; “not beat I wouldn’t. 
Never quit beat. Luck’ll swop aroun’ arter ’while. 
Try another deal or two an’ git yer money back. 
’Tain’t altogether luck nohow. I kin play some, I 
reckon.” 

His voice had boastful inflections. He considered 
himself the man of greater prowess and gloried in it. 
Ranke felt nettled. 

“ If I play on, will you ’gree to quit whenst I 
sesso?” he demanded. 

Deane nodded. He was thirsty for continued 
victory, but had sufficient decency not to want to 
sicken his host. 

“ Shuffle them cards good.” 

While Deane complied, Ranke opened the shot- 
bag and poured gold on the table — clean, shining 
gold, which fell in a heap and glittered and scin- 
tillated in the firelight, making a flare of richness 


DEANE'S RED MARE. 


29 


and color in contrast to the dinginess of the cards, 
the shadows of the swart-browed room, and the 
rough habiliments of the players. Deane had never 
seen so much money in his life; had never accurately 
realized that there was so much money in the world. 
The glitter of it got into his eyes and half-blinded 
him, the richness of it into his brain, already a little 
off balance with liquor. 

“ How much is it ?” he queried. 

“ Three hund’ed an s fifty dollars,” Ranke answered. 
“ What air you gwine to put up agin it ?” 

Then Deane added an annex to his original folly 
of persistence. Whiskey and success had made him 
seem to himself invincible. He pushed forward his 
winnings and supplemented them with the remain- 
ing contents of his pocket-book. The amount, in 
notes and silver, footed up to a hundred and fifty 
dollars. 

“ ’Tain’t enough/' Ranke objected. 

“It's all,” Deane remonstrated, picking up the 
cards. “ Even yours off.” 

He held out the pack to be cut. 

‘Air you gwine back on yer luck that a- way?” 
Ranke queried. 

Deane hesitated. 

“ I ain’t got no more to stake.” 

“ Fling in the mare. She’ll even it. I offer’d two 
hund’ed fur her myself t’other day. ’Tain’t much 
resk with ther luck you’re havin’;” his voice had a 
grudgeful, protestant tone. 

Under ordinary conditions Deane would as soon 
have eked out the stake with his own soul. But 


30 




Ranke’s reluctance to continue the game, real or 
simulated, had flattered his vanity and raised his 
self-confidence to high-water mark. To himself, he 
appeared betting almost upon a certainty and, with 
scarce a thought of how the thing might turn out, 
he assented to the other’s proposition. 

Now, Ranke was in truth the magician at cards 
which the other believed himself to be. No man 
had ever detected the “ blue-gum ” in any overt 
black-legism, but he undoubtedly possessed a gift of 
shuffling upon occasion which was little short of 
miraculous. The deal was his and he turned up 
Jack, which scored one and gave him an advantage 
at the outset; the other points stood 'flow” and 
“ game 1 for the dealer, while his opponent made 
“high.” On Deane’s deal the cards fell more evenly, 
each player scoring two, which set the record three 
to five. The faces of both were intent, on Deane’s 
forehead the sweat stood in beads, and his thin 
nostril beat in and out. Ranke’s countenance was 
moveless as that of a mummied Pharaoh, but in his 
eyes cunning flared, faded, and then flared again, 
like a brush fire. The deal had come to him again, 
and he handled the cards with swift movements. 
Once more the Jack was turned, and when Deane 
“ begged ” he gave him one promptly. Diamonds 
were trumps. Deane led the ace of hearts, to which 
the other followed suit. Then, playing warily, he 
led the king of clubs, on which fell the three of 
diamonds. The lead now was Ranke’s, and he 
played with assurance, as one certain of how the 
cards will fall. In a moment it was over. 


DEANE'S RED MARE. 


3i 


“High — low — game — an’ Jack turned up,” he 
drawled, pushing back his chair. 

Deane’s face was chalky; his eyes blazed. “Come 
on,” he muttered hoarsely, and picked up the 
cards. 

Ranke shook his head. “ I’ve had enough,” he 
said. “You ’greed to quit whenst I sesso, an’ I sesso 
now. I’m done.” 

“No!” thundered Deane, “ I want another chance! 
I claims another chance!” 

“ What on ? You’re stone broke.” 

“I ain’t ! Thar’s the house an’ lan’. I’ll bet the 
lan’ agin the horse — even. The money kin go. 
What I wants air my horse.” 

The furtive look flashed through Ranke’s eyes 
again, his lips curled away from his teeth and his 
discolored gums. He looked across into the strained 
countenance opposite with sneering amusement, but 
his words were, apparently, those of righteousness. 

“ That’s foolishness. Ther lan’ an’ house air wuth 
four times what ther horse is. I ain’t aimin’ to 
cheat you out’n nothin’ — not in my own house.” 

“ That ain’t nothin’,” the other responded. “ I 
raised up the filly an’ sets sto’ by her. She’s like 
my own flesh an 1 blood to me. Take the farm an’ 
give her back. Git out’n a deed an’ I'll sign it. 
Thar ain’t nothin’ I’m keerin’ fur but the horse. 
She ain’t nothin to you. Take the lan’.” 

Tears rushed to his fierce eyes, drowning their 
fire, his voice shook, and his hands fumbled the 
cards, letting half the pack fall. The picture of his 
horse, his glossy beauty, rose before him; he felt the 


3 2 




touch of her head against his arm, the soft pushing 
of her nose in his hand; he heard the low, gladsome 
whinny with which she always greeted his approach ; 
he saw # the love in her beautiful eyes, and moved by 
it all he pleaded with the victor. 

“ Take the Ian’/’ 

“ I don’t want it.” 

“ Play ag’in then!” desperately. 

“ I've done quit.” 

“ You won’t do neither ?” 

“ No.” 

“ You air gwine to keep my horse anyhow?” 

“ Yes.” 

Deane sprang to his feet, beside himself with 
grief and passion. 

“ By , you shalrit then!” he threatened. “ You 

shall play — damn you!” 

“Who’s to make me?” derided the other. 

“ I will.” 

Ranke laid his fingers to his nose with a gesture 
of contempt. “ Don’t make such a rumbumpshus 
fool o’ yerse’f, Deane Rutherford,” he counseled. 
“Anybody’d think you’d played away yer soul’s 
salvation an’ all yer fambly’s, stiddier one lonesome 
horse-critter.” 

Then Deane struck him. 

In a second both were a-f oot and fighting savagely. 
They were fairly well matched, for what Ranke 
lacked in height and bulk he made up in agility. 
He dealt his blows swiftly, and for the first few 
moments had the advantage, pressing his adversary 
backward toward the fire-place. The barrel had 


DEANES RED MARE. 


33 


been overturned in the first onslaught, cards and 
money lay scattered about the floor, the gold wink- 
ing in dark comers like eyes. The fighting men 
trampled it under foot. 

At last Deane contrived to break Ranke’s guard 
and get to close quarters, where his superior bulk 
told; in an instant he had secured a body-grip, lifted 
his opponent and borne him to the ground. “Will 
you sell back, or play now?” he growled, bearing 
down on the other’s chest. 

Ranke made no answer; his swarthy face was 
almost purple, his eyes narrowed and scintillated; 
there was froth on his curled lips, and his white teeth 
gleamed wickedly. He turned his head with a swift 
movement, heaved his body upward and snapped at 
his victim, suddenly, fiercely, as a dog might, seeking 
to flesh his teeth. 

Then everything went out of Deane’s head except 
his own awful danger. All the stories he had heard 
about “ blue-gums ” and the venom of their bite, 
surged through his mind, obliterating every instinct 
save that of self-preservation. The congested face, 
the gleaming teeth, the foaming mouth filled him 
with loathing, with terror. He dared not let go his 
hold, he dared not lift himself from the other’s 
struggling, prostrate body — it was kill, or be killed. 
His eye fell on the tongs, and scarcely realizing that 
which he did, he freed one hand suddenly, caught 
lip the weapon and brought the heavy iron knob 
crashing down on his adversary’s skull. Ranke’s 
body bounded convulsively under him, and then 
collapsed. 


34 




Deane staggered to his feet and stared down on 
that which he had done like a man bewildered. 
There had been no murder in his heart, only blind 
rage, and, at last, awful, unreasoning terror. He 
looked down stupidly, feeling heavy and sick, with 
strained nerves, and breath coming and going in 
sobs. 

Perhaps the man was not dead. There was very 
little blood. Even as the thought crossed his . mind 
that unmistakable, indescribable change flitted over 
Ranke’s face, his flesh quivered and stiffened, his 
jaws fell apart. 

Deane would not believe his own eyesight. He 
lifted the body and bore it to the bed, and labored 
over it with water, friction, and whiskey as he had 
seen others labor over people in swoons. After a 
time it worked into even his benumbed senses that 
the thing was useless, and he desisted. The blow 
had fallen near the temple and the skull was 
crushed in. 

Hike a man in a dream, Deane settled the body 
with its face toward the wall, as though sleeping. 
Then, still like a man in a dream, he went out from 
the cabin, closing the door carefully behind him, 
and leaving the money scattered about where it had 
fallen. 


AT THE IRON-WORKS. 


35 


CHAPTER IV. 

AT THE IRON-WORKS. 

To dwellers among the heights, away up in 
regions where the great waterways have their birth, 
the town of Montaubon commends itself as, if not 
quite a city of the plains, a place decidedly nested in 
a valley. By visitors from flat, tide-water counties, 
on the other hand, it is considered hilly. And so it 
is, but after a seemly fashion which gives fresh air 
and natural drainage, while allowing its streets, 
whether they shoulder a rise, fling themselves across 
a ravine, or handsomely humor a summit, to take 
their way sturdily, accommodating all reasonable 
traffic without undue suggestion of necessity for 
stairways or balustrades. Even in the residence 
portion, where the eternal strife to get highest sets 
the houses aloft, the scrambling may be done with- 
out alpenstocks. And for the business parts of the 
place, they are positively level. 

Notably is this the case with the portion of the 
town wherein the big iron-works and machine-shops 
of Brainard, Voss & Co. are situated. The works, 
with all necessary appurtenances of sheds and yards, 
constitute quite a village of itself, wherein prodigies 
were performed by day and by night with molten 
metal, whirling wheels, lathes, pulleys, crude ore, 
oil, limestone and profanity. 


3 ^ 




A wonderful place it is, and a wonderful place it 
looked to the young woman who stood in one of the 
smutty gateways glancing about her with vivid 
and undisguised interest. The dingy vista in front 
ended in a huge open doorway, through which she 
co.uld discern a jumble of top-hamper, leathern 
bands, wire-cordage and trolleys, amid which swung 
buckets of liquid fire, pale yellow, and glowing with 
the color of the sun’s disk at noontide. As she 
looked one of these migratory caldrons lowered 
slowly and was caught by a human figure, black and 
sooty a gnome, who canted it over and, apparently, 
spilled its contents on the ground. 

The young woman was comely, but devoid of self- 
consciousness, and stared happily about, too much 
interested in the surroundings to be mindful of the 
curiosity which she herself excited. Her costume 
was of cloth, dark blue as to color, and fitted trimly 
a swelte , graceful figure, and her hands and feet 
showed a finish which went to the hearts of the men 
looking at her, so different was it from the state of 
things pertaining to their own feminine world. 

In a moment she was joined by a stout, middle- 
aged gentleman with very black hair and eyes, who 
commenced speaking almost before he reached her 
side. 

“ It’s all right, Joyce. I’ve seen Mr. Voss and he 
has no sort of objection to your going through the 
works while I transact my business. He’s going to 
put you in charge of his foreman, a fellow well up 
in all this sort of thing, who will show you around 
and explain matters. I’ve told him your fancy for 


AT THE IRON-WORKS. 


37 


investigation, and r But here he is to speak for 

himself.” 

The stout gentleman — Charles Ruthven by name 
— interrupted himself to present to his niece two 
other men who joined the group. One was small 
and nondescript, Mr. Voss. The other was tall, 
mightily developed, and possessed a face which in- 
terested at the first glance, because of its character 
and strength. “ That is no city product,” was the 
thought which flashed through the young woman’s 
mind as she acknowledged the presentation to her of 
Mr. Deane Rutherford. She looked at him straight, 
with as honest a pair of eyes as ever beamed through 
dark lashes, and decided on the instant that she was 
quite willing to accept him as her cicerone. 

“ I’m sorry to be debarred from the pleasure of 
making the rounds with you myself, Miss Ruthvep,” 
Voss said, with old-fashioned gallantry. “ But busi- 
ness, you know;” he lifted his shoulders. “Well, it 
is only pleasure deferred for your uncle, and I will 
join you as speedily as possible. Meanwhile, Mr. 
Rutherford will take care of you. You’ll find him 
a capital guide. He’s been with us ten years and 
is practically familiar with every department. I’m 
afraid, however, there is nothing specially interest- 
ing going on in the works this afternoon, is there, 
Rutherford?” 

Deane shook his head. Nothing of sight-seeing 
interest, he feared. 

“ But it’s all a sight to me, the whole ensemble ,” 
Joyce cheerily declared. “I’m country come to 
town, Mr. Voss, and everything is new and thrilling. 


38 




I go about flattening my nose against windows, and 
obtruding my person into unexpected places. Like 
a negro, ‘ I’se jus’ a-lookin’ to see what I kin see.’ 
Never fear but I’ll find the works interesting.” 

Her freshness pleased the men, and they smiled 
good-humoredly, her uncle supplementing her state- 
ment with the declaration that he had become better 
acquainted with the city of Montaubon in the past 
seven days than in all the previous thirty years of 
his residence. His niece had “passed in and out 
through the gateways, and sought diligently in the 
highways and streets thereof,” he informed them, 
adding that he feared Mr. Rutherford’s patience 
would need “half-soling” before she got through 
with him. 

“ I hope you don’t mind answering questions very 
much,” the young lady said, looking straight at 
Rutherford. “ My present attitude of mind is a 
chronic wanting to know the ‘ becausing * of things, 
as I once heard a clever little girl express it.” 

Rutherford professed his willingness to be put in 
the witness-box with great cordiality. His social 
opportunities had been limited, and of ladies, their 
manners and methods, his ignorance was profound. 
In his soul he feared them as things beyond calcula- 
tion and dangerous; and when requested by Mr. 
Voss to take this particular specimen of the genus 
under his wing, for the nonce, had felt restive, and 
as if he would much rather run a mile the other 
way. Not thus was his feeling after five moments 
of her society. Her frankness disarmed his embar- 
rassment, and her interest in the things which in- 


AT THE IEOH- IVOR ITS. 


39 


terested him and made up his environment took 
him out of himself. Instead of relapsing into help- 
lessness the moment he was left alone with her, he 
briskly inquired where she wished to go first. 

“ There,” she responded, indicating the building 
in front of them. “ I want to see what those gob- 
lins are doing with the buckets of sunshine.” 

“ That’s melted iron,” he. explained, “and they 
are making pipes of it — drain-pipes, and sewer and 
gas pipes. It isn’t pretty work, like molding house- 
hold utensils. I wish you’d come down yesterday. 
We ran off a lot of pots, kettles, and fixtures for 
stoves. It’s interesting to see the molds broken. 
It’s sooty as a chimney down here, Miss Ruthven, 
so look out for your dress, and mind the puddles of 
water about the floor.” 

He kicked a bit of plank, garnished raggedly with 
nails, out of her path, and put out his hand to stop a 
workman, who was backing straight at them with 
an end of loose wire in his hand. 

Near the entrance they paused in front of that 
which looked to be a blank wall with a small reser- 
voir not unlike a baptismal font pressed close against 
it. As Joyce was about to inquire its meaning, a 
workman stepped forward with a long rod, sharp- 
ened at the end, and prodded a hole in the wall, 
from which presently issued a stream of pale golden 
fluid about the size of a man’s thumb. It ran swift- 
ly and pooled in the reservoir, quivering and flash- 
ing with indescribable brightness. Then voices 
shouted, “Look out!” and other voices, “Lower 
away! ” and the great buckets came swinging around 


40 




and slipped earthward in regular sequence to be re- 
filled. Men with long iron ladles rushed forward, 
grimy with oil, soot and iron-filings, and ladled up 
the fiery stuff in haste and slopped it into the buck- 
ets; and one of them rolled up a ball of wet clay on 
the end of a rod and stood by to plug up the vent 
when the word should be given. Joyce watched it 
all eagerly, and when, every now and then, there 
would be a sudden puff and splutter and bright 
sparks would spring upward and shower in gold, 
violet, green and crimson, showing bravely against 
the sooty atmosphere, her eyes would sparkle in uni- 
son, and she would glance at Rutherford delightedly. 

“ How pretty it is!” she exclaimed; “look at the 
colors! are they not beautiful? And that stream of 
molten metal, white-hot. What is it like ? ” 

“ Fox-fire,” Rutherford answered, unhesitatingly. 
“ Don’t you think so?” 

She nodded her head in approval. 

“Yes, that is it. Once when I was a little girl I 
slipped away with my brother and a lot of negro 
children into the woods to play at coon hunting. It 
was long after dark and had been raining. We 
poked about vigorously, making believe we were 
having a good time, but secretly frightened. After 
a bit we came on a dead tree, rotting and phosphor- 
escent; all one side of it was a flare of fox-fire, and 
there were dabs and pools of it all around. You 
never saw such scared babes in the woods in your 
life as we were. The negroes knew what it was, 
but Fred and I didn’t, and we just said, ‘ Oh, Lordy! ’ 
once, and then clasped hands and sped for our lives.” 


AT THE IRON-WORKS. 


4i 


Rutherford laughed. He remembered the time 
when coming suddenly on the glare of decaying 
phosphorescent wood on a rainy, lonesome night 
had tried his own nerves. He had stepped into a 
hole filled with it once, and for a terrified instant 
imagined that he had broken through into the bot- 
tomless pit. It had been years since he had thought 
about fox-fire, but somehow this young woman 
seemed to bring the woods about him again. 

It bothered him a little, for he had striven to put 
away the old life and forget it in study and reading, 
and the press of new incidents and happenings; but 
it excited him also. As the girl moved, he followed 
her with his eyes, and kept close to her side, calling 
her attention to this and to that, talking cleverly, 
often brilliantly, seeking almost unconsciously to 
awaken and stimulate her interest in himself, as well 
as in his surroundings. 

And as men show to best advantage amid familiar 
things, he succeeded and made an impression.. Had 
J oyce made his acquaintance under ordinary social 
circumstances, it is quite possible that she might 
never, consciously, have individualized him; but see- 
ing, and, what is more, hearing him in his natural 
habitat , so to speak, she invested him with full per- 
sonality, and decided with her customary zeal that 
he was quite the most affording man it had yet been 
her fortune to meet. 

They made the round of the shops, chatting 
merrily, and then Rutherford took her up an inclined 
plane into an exceeding high place, into which a 
short flume conducted the ore brought from other 


42 




places of deposit on trucks which trafficked backward 
and forward on a little elevated railway. Masses of 
the brownish, rusty looking stuff lay about on the 
floor, with attendant masses of crushed limestone; 
and in the wall over against them was a square hole 
into the furnace, which seemed the entrance to a 
veritable abyss of brimstone and burning. 

Joyce gazed down into it, with fascinated eyes, 
and Rutherford gazed at her. Again she turned to 
him. 

“ I want to be buried on a mountain-side,” she ab- 
ruptly announced, “ with the spring of grass and 
flowers and the sough of pines overhead. I want a 
clear spring close by, with a rippling branch run- 
ning from it, and all the cool, moist things one can 
think of about my grave. Think of being put in a 
pit like that! ” pointing with an abhorrent finger, 
“ or having the defenceless body of one you love put 
in. I don’t care what science says, or how insensible 
death makes one. It’s horrible! ” 

Rutherford nodded in agreement. He knew that 
this was sentiment without alloy, but he did not 
mind it. The ultimate resting-place of her desire 
seemed preferable to him also. And the more, that 
he knew of a man having come to his death as well 
as burial in this very furnace. He spoke of it to 
her. 

“ It was before I came to the works,” he said, in 
reply to a shuddering question. “ The men told me 
about it. The poor fellow was drunk and none knew 
it. He was up here alone, tending the furnace, and 
must have overbalanced himself shoveling in ore 


AT THE IRON-WORKS . 


43 


and fallen in. Another workman, who was coming 
to relieve him, got to the door about the time it 
occurred. He heard a sort of curious, appalling 
shriek, like nothing human, he said, and when he 
got to the furnace there was a darkish lump to be 
seen amid the flames. The man could never tell 
about it, even months afterward, without going all 
to pieces and crying.” 

The woman who was listening had tears in her 
eyes also; she raised them to his almost brimming 
over. “ Could nothing be done ? ” she questioned, 
pitifully. 

Rutherford shook his head. “ I doubt if there 
were even bits of calcined bones left among the 
slag,” he declared. Then he tried to make her un- 
derstand something of fusion, and the specific amount 
of heat required to convert the brown ore at her feet 
into that which she had called “ molten sunshine.” 

In the furnace-room they were presently joined 
by Mr. Voss and the young lady’s uncle, and Ruth- 
erford was obliged to give place, secretly against his 
will, to the older men. He noticed, however, that 
for the rest of the time they were together the girl’s 
mood seemed less spontaneous, and that her merry 
words were fewer. He hated himself for having 
saddened her with his grewsome reminiscences, and 
then, when he recalled the up-glance of her eyes 
through big tears, he was glad he had done it. 


44 




CHAPTER V. 

“to tread turf again, old horse.” 

During the week following- her visit to the iron- 
works Rutherford occupied considerable space in 
Joyce Ruthven’s thoughts. He had opened for her 
a new world, so to speak — a world in which men - 
toiled with their hands and suffered with their 
bodies. He had brought close to her things which 
heretofore had been abstract, and made her sensible 
of the achievement, purpose and pain which are 
incorporated in the very garments humanity wears, 
and the very utensils wherewith it is served. Life 
feeding on death ceased to be a poetical illustration, 
and announced itself a grisly fact. She began to 
think about it all, to wonder, and to push out inquis- 
itive feelers from her own circumscribed life into 
the vastness of the unknown. It is a crucial time 
with a mind when it quits working along the lines of 
precedent and commences to open up new ground 
for itself. Its first movements are generally icono- 
clastic, the felling of timber and burning of under- 
growth, and it is just here where the danger lies, 
since an over-energetic mind ‘is apt to forget both 
beauty and shade in its pioneer efforts, and to make 
corn-land of all, instead of bits of pleasance and bits 
of farm. Utility is good, and, doubtless, indispen- 
sable, but man lives not by bread alone, 


45 


“TO TREAD TURF AGAIN, OLD HORSE." 

From a too desperate recognition of facts, Joyce 
was saved by her sex, and also by the omnipresent 
sentiment which goes to the make-up of most 
Southern women. Her intellect was as clear and 
logical as the best, up to a certain point, but it never 
got the whip-hand of her feelings. 

She put a great many questions to her uncle about 
Rutherford — where he came from, what he did at 
the works, what family of Rutherfords he belonged 
to, and the like. All of which converted Mr. Ruth- 
ven into a living negation. He knew nothing about 
the young fellow, he declared, had not even been 
aware that he shared the general blessing of exist- 
ence until that afternoon. Mr. Voss had spoken of 
Rutherford with enthusiasm; had called him a won- 
derful development from adverse conditions, and a 
mechanical genius. What the conditions had been, 
Ruthven knew not, nor had he inquired, taking it 
for granted that poverty and the customary educa- 
tional scramble made them up largely. For the 
young man’s genius — that might be; the world was 
full of genius, according to individual representa- 
tion, at least, although but to one or two in a gene- 
ration was it given to make names wherewith to 
conjure. At the family question, Ruthven laughed 
aloud. According to him, the Rutherfords of Vir- 
ginia were scattered abroad in great multitude; to use 
the vernacular, the very “woods were full of them.” 

After her return home the young lady’s interest 
flickered and died down; but it did not altogether 
go out. Under the light ashes of subsequent events 
the embers smoldered, ready to flare into flame 


4 6 




again should any wind of circumstance chance to 
blow strongly upon them. 

With Rutherford the impression made, with time 
underwent a somewhat similar process, only that 
with him, in the first instance, it had contained both 
a personal and appropriative impulse. His first 
definite thought about her had been “that’s a 
woman to trust,” his second “that’s the sort of 
woman I want for my wife.” Later in the interview, 
when she had up-lifted to him tear-filled eyes, he 
had not thought at all — only felt, strange, indescrib- 
able things that prickled his soul as an electric shock 
would have prickled his body. Once, a couple of days 
after her visit, in a foregathering of sentiment, he 
had betaken himself to the dirty little furnace-room 
with half conscious intent to muse upon her image 
and, if possible, to renew the novel sensations 
already described. The experiment had not been a 
success. A lot of sooty, perspiring workmen, with 
the aid of shovels and profanity, had been freeing 
the flume from an overplus — “ onchokin’ her,” they 
called it. Rutherford had watched them in disgust 
for a moment, his thought perched upon the fence 
which divides sentiment from absurdity, with a leg 
on each side, as it were. When a particularly fat, 
squabby little negro, crow-black, and as droll as a 
Barbary ape, thrust himself and his shovel into a 
place where there was no call for either, and received 
from a neighboring elbow a lunge in the stomach 
which set him capering and blaspheming upon the 
identical spot whereon Rutherford had intended to 
conjure his vision, a climax had been reached which 


“ TO TREAD TURF AGAIN, OLD HORSE. 


47 


caused the young fellow to retreat in undisguised 
hilarity, fully cured of all desire to attitudinize amid 
practical surroundings. 

Sometimes, however, when he was alone at his 
work in the modeling-room, or busy at night with 
books, drawings and mathematical instruments, the 
circle of polarized light within which his work 
rested would appear to broaden out, to grow soft in 
its luminosity, and take on the similitude of a 
brightening for sunrise. Then, unsummoned, the 
face of Joyce Ruthven would grow before his 
mental vision until it well-nigh appeared to assume 
material substance, and the impression she had 
made upon him would renew itself. 

About the middle of October of that same year 
Rutherford was in his own particular den at the 
works, busy with drawings and calculations. On 
the desk beside him was a model of an intricate bit 
of machinery, to which he referred from time to 
time. His forehead was corrugated with perpen- 
dicular lines between the brows, and his eyes were 
intent and brooding; elusive numerals sped through 
his brain, with thought in active pursuit, but fre- 
quently not nimble enough to catch them ; his hand 
moved spasmodically, now making lines and figures, 
and again beating impatiently with the point of the 
pencil upon the paper. 

Into his absorption broke stridently a voice keyed 
to concert pitch, and a woolly head was thrust through 
the door-way. Both head and voice thereunto per- 
taining, belonged to a descendant of Ham employed 
about the works as a messenger boy. 


4 8 




This worthy vociferated: “ Mr. Ruth’ford, Mr. 
Voss, he say, you mus’ come down ter de countin’- 
room d’reck’ly, sar. Say he in a pow’ful hurry.” 
This last an addition of his own. 

Rutherford whirled around on him in swift anger. 
“ What do you mean by yelling at me in that way, 
you confounded monkey?” he demanded. “Next 
time you do it I’ll split your head open! Do you 
hear? ” 

“ Ya-as, sar,” drawled the unabashed messenger; 
then added, with an expostulatory inflection, “ ’Tain’t 
no use gittin’ mad wid me. , I been down totin’ 
words back’ards an’ for’reds in dem ole shops, an’ 
I’se ’bleeged to hiest up high, fur to top de fuss. 
My voice ain’t come down off ’n de roost yit. Dat 
how-come I holler.” 

As easily. placated as aroused, Rutherford laughed, 
and his hand sought his vest pocket for a coin, 
which the grinning bit of ebony caught as the young 
man passed him. 

As he entered the counting-room, Mr. Voss turned 
in his chair and addressed him at once. 

“ See here, Rutherford, that business I talked with 
you about last week is coming to a head. The con- 
tract is about closed, but the firm have asked us to 
send them down a man to make estimates for them 
as to the additional space which will be required for 
the new machinery, and all that sort of thing. They 
want to economize time and get things into satis- 
factory shape at once. Mr. Brainard and I have 
talked the matter over and decided to send you. 
What do you think of it ? ” 


“TO TREAD TURF AGAIN , OLD HORSED 49 

He looked up at the younger man with a kindly 
smile in his eyes. He was fond of Rutherford and 
proud of him besides. He had caught the chap 
wild, so to speak, and brought him in and stood 
sponsor for him, and the result had been creditable. 
In Voss’s opinion, his protege was already booked for 
a fate beyond ordinary. 

“Think it over,” Voss said, still smiling, “You 
remember what I hinted the other day ? This new 
factory will require a capable, energetic man, with a 
head on his shoulders, to get it running — to superin- 
tend for the owners, in fact. The firm know us and, 
privately, requested us to put them in the way of 
the man they wanted. We’ve had some correspond- 
ence, and the result is, Deane, that an offer will 
probably be made you when, you get out there. 
It’s pretty well a certainty.” 

Mr. Voss spoke with business caution, but Ruther- 
ford understood that the affair was in such shape 
that his own decision was the only thing requisite. 

“ What do you advise ?” 

His tone was rather that of brother deferring to 
brother, than employe consulting employer, and the 
look in his eyes matched the friendliness in those of 
the older man. Deane owed Mr. Voss more than he 
could ever repay and was too gratefully aware of 
the fact to let it trouble him. He simply laid against 
his indebtedness deep love and unswerving loyalty 
and so canceled it. 

“That you take whatever they offer,” Voss re- 
plied quickly. “ It isn’t the money, Deane. We can 
afford to pay you as much, and more, than these fel- 


5 ° 


— ? — 


lows are likely to give, and you are worth it to us. 
But the thing is to get you on your own feet in a 
position of responsibility and from under my wing. 
I want you to get a bit more recognition than you’ll 
ever get here where you've worked among the men. 
You don’t belong to them any longer. By your own 
ability and pluck you’ve lifted yourself to another 
level, and I believe you’ve got it in you to lift your- 
self higher still. This position is in many ways a 
rise for you. My advice is to take it.” 

Rutherford held out his hand. “All right,” he 
said seriously. “ I’ve gone by your word ever since 
I quit the woods, and its led me pretty straight so 
far. Whatever I make of my life, Mr. Voss, it will 
be as much your doing as mine. You’ve been the 
sort of friend to me Jonathan was to David.” 

“And David became a king,” laughed Mr, Voss, 
returning the hand-clasp heartily. “ Take care you 
do me that much credit!” 

“ I’m not going to shame you at any rate, or to 
make you sorry you didn t leave me in Toby Blake ? s 
smithy,” the young fellow declared sturdily. 

Then for half an hour the two men discussed busi- 
ness details connected with the proposed change, 
Deane entering into it with an enthusiasm which 
showed how good a thing he realized it to be for him. 

“ How far is it from here?” he questioned, as he 
stood up to return to his logarithms. 

“Winock? Oh, not far. About forty miles out 
on the G. & H. railway. It isn’t much of a place; 
just the usual country village, but it’s well 
within the confines of the best tobacco region of 


" 7 V TREAD TURF AGAIN, OLD HO R SET 51 

Virginia and North Carolina, which is the reason 
these cigarette men picked on it for a location. By 
the way, it’s in the direction of your old home. If I 
remember right, Tuckahoe Mountain is in full sight 
from the village. We passed through Winock on 
our way here ten years ago, but I don’t suppose you 
noticed. When I was a young fellow I visited a 
good deal in that neighborhood — had a sweet-heart 
down there-away. It was a mighty pleasant region 
before the war, but I suppose it’s a good deal 
changed now.” 

The proximity of the village to his native wilds 
pleased Rutherford. In all these years of labor, 
struggle and partial success, he had never gone 
back, nor did he intend to do so now. The old life, 
to him, seemed afar off and separated from his pres- 
ent and future as by a gulf; but, with one hideous 
exception, his memories of it were pleasant, kindly 
memories, full of quaint lights and iridescent colors. 
And, being a mountaineer, he had had his periodical 
fits of nostalgia. To have old Tuckahoe in sight 
would be to him as a familiar presence, which pleased 
and yet made no claim upon him. 

Late in the afternoon he took his way up-town 
and entered a livery stable. 

“ How’s my horse to-day, Dick ? ” he questioned, 
as a mulatto groom stepped forward. 

“ Lively as a cricket, sar,” was the reply. “ We- 
all gin her de mash jus’ like you fixed it las’ night, 
an’ she chaw’d her oats right relishin’ dis mornin’. 
’Tain’t nothin’ much de matter wid her ’scusin’ she 
ain’t so young as she used to be,” 


Rutherford passed on to a loose-box wherein, on 
clean straw, stood a handsome sorrel mare, well 
groomed and shining like red satin. She greeted 
him with a murmurous whinny of affection, and con- 
tinuous soft shoving with her nose and forehead, 
while he ran his hand over her quarters, examined 
her legs and assured himself that justice had been 
done her. 

“Well, sweetheart,” he said, drawing her head to 
his breast and fondling her as though she had been 
a woman, “ I’ve got news for you to-day We’re 
going to make a break again, we two. Don’t you 
want to turn your nose mountain-ward once more, 
old horse? Don’t you want to smell the woods 
again, to get Tuckahoe wind into your nostrils, and 
feel the spring of clean ground under your hoofs ? 
Ain’t you tired of city streets and city stables ? ” He 
glanced around at the appointments of the box. 
“ You won’t be so comfortable out yonder, I’m 
afraid, lady, and you like your little ways. Still, 
we’ll be together, and I will do the best I can for 
you. We’ve loved each other for sixteen years, my 
horse, and we can’t afford to part. Isn’t that so ? ” 

The red mare held her head still, with the off ear, 
colored like a fall maple leaf, pricked forward for 
his words. When he finished speaking, she pulled 
away a little, as though she understood him, turned 
her lustrous glance to his, and whinnied her answer. 


SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 


53 



CHAPTER VI. 

SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 

Joyce Ruthven stood on the lawn in the full glow 
of the autumn sunshine. On her head was a flap- 
ping hat of scarlet felt with a peaked crown, and in 
her hand a small black and white basket, of the sort 
which negroes make out of white-oak splits. Her 
blue dress, tan gloves, and a brace of russet dogs at her 
feet, helped out the chromatic harmony, and made 
her a fit center for a picture whose background was 
a stately cream -colored old mansion of stuccoed 
brick, and whose vanishing point was the violet of 
the far horizon. 

The house was a singular pile, built in a day when 
neither time nor money had been an object with the 
Ruthvens. Despite the gnawing and nibbling the 
building had endured from the tooth of time, it was 
impressive. It consisted of a central part, large 
and square, with pillared portico in front, and in the 
rear a pretty built-in balcony with a stone balus- 
trade, under which was a small conservatory. On 
either hand were wings, in themselves large enough 
to domicile a family, connected with the center house 
by brick covered ways, low and flat-roofed, and fur- 
nished on top with plank walk-ways, guarded by 
posts with chains linked from one to the other. The 


wings had porticoes likewise, which were the objec- 
tive points of the roof- walks, and on them the family 
were wont to have the tea-table spread in summer 
evenings. 

The house, as well as its surroundings, showed 
the falling off in means incident to the changed con- 
ditions at the South. In places the stucco had pealed 
off, revealing the bricks, and the ornamental balus- 
trade which enclosed the hipped roof of the center 
portion was broken in parts, and sagged at the cor- 
ners. But it was a handsome place still, barring all 
defects — handsome with the glory of age, solidity 
and fine toning. The girl standing on the lawn 
before it, herself a study in color, let her glance 
wander from foundation to facade with loving ap- 
preciation. For upward of a century the place had 
cradled her race, and in her sight it was more than 
beautiful. 

Presently her glance traveled sideways to the 
covered corridors and rested upon a flock of white, 
mauve, and slate-colored pigeons, who were busily 
pecking the mortar from between the old bricks, 
clinging to the wall with their toes and digging 
away with predatory beaks and much soft cooing 
and fluttering of lustrous, iridescent wings. When 
one of the marauders succeeded in dislodging an 
unusually big bit of mortar the rest would con- 
gratulate him and themselves, coo with delight, and 
apply them again to the task of demolition as though 
it were praiseworthy. Joyce sent her basket hur- 
tling through the air at them, accompanied by an 
emphatic “shoo — shoo!” of protest. The birds flut- 


SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 


55 


tered out and away, circling off toward the big barn 
at the foot of the hill, on the roof of which they 
alighted, preened themselves and strutted coquet- 
tishly. 

One of the dogs, a retriever, gamboled after the 
basket, caught it up by the handle, and after some 
coaxing restored it to its owner. . 

From a side-door three children emerged, two 
girls of six and eight, and a boy much younger. 
The larger children attempted to thrust the boy 
back and fasten the door, holding him a prisoner 
inside; but his resistance was so sturdy that they 
were compelled to desist and content themselves 
with racing away from him. Both were equipped 
with baskets, and they seemed eager. 

“ Auntie Joy,” they exclaimed in a tumult, as they 
joined her, “ Edmund declares he’s going too, and 
we don’t want him. Please don’t listen to him! 
Don’t let him go.” 

“ Why not ?” the young lady demanded. 

“ ’Cause he’s too little to walk all that way. And 
he hasn’t any shoes on, and will get stickers in his 
feet and holler. He’ll get tired too and want us to 
tote him pick-a-back, and he’s just as heavy as iron.” 

It was the elder girl who expounded; the younger 
stood silently acquiescent. Both were unusually 
pretty children. 

“ Come here, Edmund,” Joyce called. 

The little fellow just ruled against joined the 
group. He was a well-built, strong-limbed child of 
four, with honest gray eyes and a tousle of yellowish 
chestnut curls. His kilt was torn at one side and 


56 




flapped against his bare brown legs. In feature and 
expression he resembled J oyce herself strongly 

“You want to go mighty bad, little man ?” she 
questioned, her voice involuntarily softening. 

The child nodded. 

“All right, you shall. Auntie will look out for 
you. You shall carry her basket and have all the 
fun you want. There — there! little women! ' as the 
other children raised a hue and cry, “you needn’t 
bother with him. Ill carry him myself if he gets 
tired. It’s beastly mean of you to want to leave 
your little brother behind anyhow.” 

Joyce spoke vigorously. She hated to see a child’s 
face clouded without adequate cause, and of her 
brother’s children the boy was the favorite. One of 
the little girls suggested the disastrous results likely 
to accrue from " stickers ” again, and Joyce advanced 
toward the house. Catching up a bit of gravel she 
threw it with well-directed aim against one of the 
windows, which was promptly opened by a handsome, 
dark -haired young woman in a dressing-gown. 

“ What is it ?” she queried. 

“Edmund’s socks and shoes,” answered Joyce. 
“ Throw them down to me. I’m going to take him 
after chestnuts with us.” 

“ Mercy, Joyce!” remonstrated her sister-in-law, 

‘ I wouldn’t. It’s two miles to the chestnut woods, 
and he’ll be sure to break down and cry. I can’t 
spare Belinda from the baby to go along and carry 
him. Edmund is as heavy as lead, and if you take 
him you’ll repent it.” 

“No, I won’t,” persisted Joyce, laughing. “He’s 


SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 


57 


a stouter fellow than you think; aren’t you, manny ? 
Do look at his face, Louise! How could I leave him, 
when his heart’s set on going? You’ve done your 
duty in protesting, so throw down his shoes. If unto 
me repentance cometh, so be it.” 

“ Pray rather that the back be strengthened for 
the burden,” smiled her sister, as she tossed out the 
little boots and stockings. “ Every ounce of your 
boy will be a pound by the time you get him home 
again.” 

J oyce sat herself down on the grass and drew the 
child into her lap, drawing on his socks and button- 
ing his boots with swift fingers. While she did so 
the little fellow huddled his cheek up to hers and 
bestowed a series of rough, grateful hugs upon her. 

“ I’ll walk all myse’f,” he declared; “an’ tote you’ 
bastet, an’ full it all up for you, Auntie; heapin’ full.” 

“ So you will, manikin. Auntie knows all about 
it, she’s been boys herself long ago. Come on, 
young ones, all. We must hurry.” 

Then she called up to the lady at the window again. 

“ Don't worry about Edmund, sister. Fred’s going 
to meet us in the woods, and shake a tree for us. 
He’ll let the children ride his horse home.” 

“ Very good,” Mrs. Ruthven called back. “ I was 
going to send Belinda to meet you in an hour or so; 
but if Fred will be along it’s all right.” 

The road to the chestnut wood led along between 
fields and through ravines and dingles. It was 
fenced on one side with a picturesque rock wall, 
capped with broken white flint, very different from 
the customar3 ,r stake and rail fence of the country. 


58 




There were twenty miles of it on and about the plan- 
tation, with gateways with solid stone pillars, all of 
it an enduring monument to the thrift and manage- 
ment of some old-time Ruthven. The wall was 
covered with lichens and rock-moss, making tracer- 
ies of gray and drab against the darkness of the 
stones; over it, in places, masses of poison-oak, 
bramble-berry and Virginia creeper had tangled 
themselves, gay bedight with crimson, brown and 
yellow, like carnival maskers for the autumn’s har- 
lequinade. The road was crossed farther along by 
the public highway leading into the village; but 
here it was sequestered, and Joyce walked along, 
surrounded by children and dogs, in the happiest 
mood and secure from observation. She loved free- 
dom, movement, the odors of field and fell, and the 
spring of the earth under her feet. The dogs cir- 
cled about, now in front and again lagging far be- 
hind, thrusting investigating noses into crevices in 
the wall,- lest, haply, rabbits might have secreted 
themselves, or ground-squirrels be seeking to invest 
their rubbishing affairs with mystery and conceal- 
ment. The little girls danced and sung, taking 
many unnecessary steps, but Edmund trotted sober- 
ly and reserved his strength, mindful of the predic- 
tion which had well-nigh wrought his undoing. 

Arrived at the nut wood, Joyce led her party 
straight to a tree in a little open, which she said 
always gave the first and finest chestnuts of the 
season. There had been frost the night before, and 
all the burrs, on spreading branches and lofty crown, 
were cleft to the heart, and showed treasure. The 


SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 


59 


children shouted with delight, and began pawing 
and scratching, like chickens, among the fallen 
leaves and sticks on the ground. 

“Pigs have been here,” announced Jeanie in dis- 
gust, pointing to up-turned mold and leaves. “ Just 
look how they’ve rooted! They’ve gobbled up every 
chestnut the wind shook down last night. I hate 
pigs — greedy wretches! ” She spoke with the acri- 
mony of the anticipated. 

Little Page stared upward with longing eyes. 
“ There isn’t a bit of wind,” she complained, “ not a 
single teenchy-weenchy blow. Just look at the 
chestnuts, Auntie! Don’t you reckon you could hit 
’em with a stick. Father does.” 

“ I can try,” Joyce assented. “ I used to be a good 
hand to throw in my youth. Get me some sticks, 
bairnies, and stand from under. I may hit what 
I’m not aiming at.” 

“ Father may be coming,” suggested Page, drop- 
ping her basket. “ I’m going back to the wall and 
holler for him. Pick up for me, Edmund, ’til I 
come back.” 

The coolness of the proposal staggered Edmund; 
he half turned, obediently, to pick up the basket, 
then remembered that his would-be task-mistress 
had done her best to cut him oft from the expedi- 
tion. “ I s’a’n’t do it! ” he announced, suddenly, and 
carried two chestnuts he had found to his aunt, de- 
spite the longing of his little teeth to crack them. 

Page sped away, scrambled up on the wall, and 
sent her clear treble ringing along the road in a call: 
“ Father! father! Come on! We’re waiting for you! ” 


Deane Rutherford, coming along the cross-road 
from Winock, heard her and turned aside. It seemed 
a lonesome, far-off place for a child to be, and he 
felt curious. What could any child be doing so far 
a-field ? As he approached he caught sight of the 
little one on the wall, and recognized her. His so- 
journ at Winock, as yet, had been short, but it had 
covered a Sunday, which in country villages is a day 
of investigation and research. He had seen the 
child at church, and, being pretty, he had noted her; 
he had seen Joyce also, and had learned that the 
pair belonged together, in a way. He had learned 
also that she made her home with a married brother, 
who owned the family estate, and who had several 
children. He wondered if the young lady might 
chance to remember him, and told himself that it 
was not likely, and then discredited his own con- 
clusion. 

Page was a friendly little soul, not at all shy with 
strangers, and very speedily after Rutherford had 
ranged alongside and opened colloquy she put him 
in possession of the facts of the case. He dis- 
mounted at once, and fastened his horse to a swing- 
ing limb. 

“I’ll shake the tree for you,” he said. “Your 
father hadn’t started from the village, when I left. 
He was talking to a lot of men on the store porch. 
You are Mr. Ruthven’s little girl, aren’t you ?” 

Page nodded, let him jump her down from the 
wall, and skipped forward by his side with elation. 
To have secured an assistant like this was a thing 
to be proud of. 


SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 


61 


Joyce had armed herself with a stout stick and 
stood poised for the throw; the right foot was 
planted, supporting the body, which rose pliant and 
firm from the hips; the left foot was advanced a 
little, the head and arm thrown backward, the eyes 
lifted and intent to gauge the distance. Every line 
and curve, the round of the side, the poise of the 
shoulders, the swell of the breast, the sweep of the 
arm, was instinct with grace and energy. As the 
missile flew straight, struck a well-ladened branch 
and brought down a shower of nut's, Rutherford 
had much ado to keep from applauding. . The exhi- 
bition had been so pretty that it set his nerves to 
thrilling. He would have liked to hide himself 
somewhere and watch her throw at chestnuts for 
the balance of the afternoon. 

Instead of which he came forward and re-intro- 
duced himself. Joyce recognized him with flatter- 
ing promptitude, and laughingly inquired into her 
niece’s stoppage of him on the public highway. 

“ She’s so distracted after chestnuts that she’d 
halt a king on his way to coronation to shake the 
tree for her.” 

“ I know exactly how she feels,” Rutherford de- 
clared; “I’ve sat under a chestnut tree in a dead 
calm myself and hungered for help. She didn’t halt 
me, however. I halted myself, and thrust my ser- 
vices upon her. Her plan seemed to be roosting on 
the wall and making the welkin ring.” 

“ My brother was to have joined us here,” Joyce 
explained. “ He must have been detained some- 
where.” 


62 




Rutherford acquiesced cheerfully and proceeded 
to divest himself of coat and vest. He was a tall 
man, but the tree branched high; it took a sinuous 
spring and considerable scrambling to land him 
astride of the lowest limb. After that he went up- 
ward like a sailor, hand over hand. When the crown 
of the tree was reached he caught the tapering stem 
in his arms and shook violently; the whole shaft 
swayed and trembled to his movement, the twigs 
whipped about, the brown burrs turned over and 
spilled their contents, which rattled to the ground in 
a hard shower, making the dead leaves hop about as 
though galvanized, and compelling the children and 
dogs to caper, shout, and bark at a distance. 

After ten minutes of frenzied zeal he called down 
to know if they had enough. All the loose nuts were 
out, he said, but if they would find him a pole he 
would thrash the burrs off. 

“No, indeed!” Joyce replied; “we’ve more than 
enough. Don’t take any more trouble, please. 
The baskets won’t hold what you’ve shaken down 
now.” 

He descended and helped them pick up, growing 
merry and familiar with the children and exceed- 
ingly friendly with Joyce. When the baskets were 
full he loaded his pockets, and even proposed to 
supplement Edmund’s hat with his own. 

They went back to the road together and Ruther- 
ford helped them over the wall, remarking as he 
lifted Edmund down that the little man looked 
fagged, and in poor shape for the homeward tramp. 
His horse was gentle, he said, and proposed to give 


SHAKING A CHESTNUT TREE. 


63 

the children a lift, observing, mendaciously, that he 
believed their ways were the same. 

As they walked side by side, the red mare follow- 
ing with her back piled with children from mane to 
crupper, Rutherford sketched over the time since 
their previous meeting, telling her of his appoint- 
ment as superintendent of this new industry to be 
started at Winock, and intimating that his sojourn 
in the neighborhood might be a protracted one. 
Joyce listened with interest, inwardly resolving to 
make her brother call at the earliest moment and so 
get this pleasant acquaintance onto an orthodox 
footing. 

About half-way home they encountered Mr. Fred 
Ruthven on horseback, moderately contrite, and 
very explanatory. He had gotten himself ensnared 
by business in the village, and forgotten all about 
his appointment with the children until too late to 
keep it; but as soon as he remembered had ridden 
straight home, hoping that Joyce might have de- 
layed or abandoned the expedition. His wife had 
pounced upon him without mercy and straightway 
ordered him off to deploy along the road and pick 
up stragglers. 

He had met Rutherford some days before in the 
village, and shook hands amicably, albeit he ap- 
peared a trifle surprised at the terms on which he 
found the young man with his family. 

“ They seemed as chummy as though they’d made 
mud pies together,” he declared to his wife in the 
privacy of their chamber. “ There was a ‘ we twa 
ha’ runned adoon the bra’ look about them that set 


64 




me back tremendously, until Joyce explained that 
she’d met Rutherford last winter at Montaubon.” 

“ So she did,” Louise affirmed; “ she told me about 
it. Uncle Charlie introduced him. He’s an inventor, 
or mechanical genius, or something, and was con- 
nected with Brainard, Voss & Co.’s celebrated iron- 
works. Rutherford is a mighty good name, you 
know, Fred, and Uncle Charlie wouldn’t have intro- 
duced a man to Joyce she oughtn’t to know. You’d 
better call, and have him at the house in the regular 
way if Joyce likes him. It must be immensely in- 
teresting to know a genius.” 

Mr. Ruthven had his doubts, which he wisely kept 
to himself. His own conception of genius was that 
it might be self-sufficient. His wife had no mislead- 
ing intention, but she had produced on his mind an 
impression of Rutherford vastly different from that 
which might have been made by the verity. 


I 


JOYCES LOVERS . 


65 


CHAPTER VII. 

Joyce’s lovers. 

To every attractive woman there comes, sooner or 
later, a period when such belleship as is to be her 
portion appears to leaf out and blossom around her. 
Joyce was entering upon her heritage, with drums 
and banners, just about the time that Rutherford 
made her acquaintance, and even in her own quiet 
neighborhood she could boast of “ lovers twain who 
came to woo.” Heading the list was the rector of 
the parish, a recent widower, poor man, with a fol- 
lowing of girl children fit to reduce him to lunacy, 
when the clothes which their deceased mother had 
provided should wear out and force him to grapple 
with problems more dire than election or justifica- 
tion. Perhaps it was the foreshadowing of extremity 
which made him cast about early for help. Joyce 
thought so, and maintained that the reverend gen- 
tlemen was driven wifeward by the instinct of self- 
preservation alone. 

“ My spiritual state was just as precarious before 
Mrs. Green died as it is now,” she argued within 
herself. “And I was every bit as ignorant about 
the Aryan evolutions. Only it didn’t seem to prey 
on the rector’s mind as long as the little Greens had 
somebody to cut and make for them. If those chil- 


66 




dren’s bodies didn’t lay like lead on his mind I don’t 
think my soul would.” 

She kept her disrespectful musings to herself, 
however, having some reverence for the office eccle- 
siastic, and a decided affection for the Winock rep- 
resentative of it, who was a seemly man, and had 
buried her father and mother, besides baptizing 
every one of her brother’s children. 

About her other adorer, a dashing young medico, 
who rode a black horse and sported new saddle-bags 
filled with dangerous professional appointments, she 
was more outspoken, for Dr. Hatton labored under 
the disadvantage of having played with her in child- 
hood, and the additional disadvantage of being called 
by his Christian name without the justification of 
kinship. 

J oyce refused to take him seriously, or believe in 
his affection a bit more than she did in his medicine. 
Of the one she affirmed, “ Craige shall never physic 
me while the breath is in his father’s nostrils. Why, 
we used to doctor the stumps in the yard together 
with sassafras juice and balm tea, and perform 
surgical operations on gapey chickens with a horse- 
hair or a feather. 

Of the other she said: “Craige Hatton is in love 
with me because it’s hereditary in his family, like 
the tendency to physic and the preference for black 
horses. Every Hatton man born in the county 
for generations has courted a Ruthven woman 
and then happily married somebody else. It’s a 
race peculiarity for which they are not account- 
able.” 


JOYCE'S LOVERS. 67 

Mrs. Ruthven, to whom this theory of the doctor’s 
love was expounded, turned up her nose at it. 

“ Fiddle-faddle!” scoffed she, “ I’d like to see 
hereditary predilection stand against ugliness or 
stupidity. If you had a broken nose, or one leg 
shorter than the other; or even if you were good to 
look at, and without sense or tact, the Hatton record 
would be broken mighty quickly. Craige’s father 
might have courted your aunt, and his grandfather 
your great-aunt, and so on back through the ages; 
but Craige himself wouldn’t court you. You’re a 
bonnie woman, Joyce, and that's why the men come 
after you.” 

The old Scotch word just described Joyce; at this 
period of her life she was “bonnie.” 

Rutherford certainly found her so. 

He returned Ruthven’s call with promptitude, 
and, despite the rush of business consequent to 
getting a new enterprise upon its legs, contrived 
to see a good deal of that gentleman’s family. 
They all took to him, for underneath his acquired 
culture lay a homely substratum of truth and sim- 
plicity, coupled with the inherent directness of the 
natural born scientist. It did not take Rutherford 
long to discover the real nature of his feeling for 
Joyce, nor did he scruple to call it by its true name. 
He indulged in no pretty subterfuges, no fancy casts 
with the white-fly or scarlet ibis of “friendship;” he 
dropped his line into the water straight, and baited 
his hook with his heart. 

He lavished on Joyce every attention he could 
think of, which did not seem to him unjustifiable; 


68 


but his courtship cost him considerable wear and 
tear in mind as well as in emotions. His love was 
fine and true enough to teach him that a woman, 
in wooing, must be handled like delicate machinery, 
not worked like raw material on an anvil. That her 
moods and inclinations must be studied, and his con- 
duct adjusted thereunto with the nicety with which 
wheel fits into cog, or rod answers to piston. And 
when he cast about in his past for help in the matter 
there was no precedent. Love of woman had never 
touched his life before, and the only supreme 
affections heretofore experienced, friendship for 
Mr. Voss and love for his red mare,, did not prove 
suggestive. 

His rivals bothered him also, and made him low 
in his mind. He could not divine Joyce’s indiffer- 
ence to both; for she took care not to make it 
apparent before him, giving him rather the impres- 
sion that each held an exalted post in her estima- 
tion. The spiritual effulgence which appeared to 
surround the rector, in particular, struck terror to 
his soul. Well he remembered how in his youth the 
fattest chickens, the headiest cider, the biggest 
sweet potatoes and the most toothsome home-made 
preserves were invariably saved for the preacher — 
how the women would preen themselves and flutter 
at clerical approach, and how the advent of a new 
circuit-rider would be followed by access of feminine 
spiritual anxiety. Women and preachers — the very 
words appeared to* sidle together, like horses well- 
matched and fit to pull in double-harness. And if 
this were true of ordinary circuit-riders, men who 


JOYCE'S LOVERS. 


69 


stood up on plain platforms and preached in their 
everyday clothes, how doubled and twisted must be 
its verity when applied to a white-handed gentleman 
who bedecked himself in vestments, occupied an 
ecclesiastical chair, held forth above the crimson or 
purple cushions of a reading-desk, and encouraged 
musical response in his service ? The odors of the 
sanctuary became offensive in Deane’s nostrils; he 
grew non-conformist in thought, and while he fre- 
quented the church with a regularity equaled only 
by the rector’s, he did so in a carping spirit. 

The doctor’s aspirations, while they inspired equal 
reprobation, did not occasion him half so much 
trepidation. The man of medicine stood on his own 
feet, so to speak, and had only mundane backing. 
Still they were good feet to stand on, and at times 
when, for reasons only to be appreciated by lovers, 
Deane was serving a term in the valley of humilia- 
tion, he was fain to admit it. As in emotional 
extremities a man’s instinct unconsciously reverts 
to his past experience for guidance, in considering 
this rival also, Deane went back to the only portion 
of his own life in which women had been prominent, 
and the result was well-nigh as disconcerting in the 
one case as the other. He minded well how the 
matrons and maids used to revel in discussions of 
sickness and symptoms, how they had thrilled over 
remedies, and walked miles to exchange receipts for 
making noxious brews and decoctions; how they 
gloried in experiment, and regarded avidly the 
materise systole and diastole; how they hung on the 
doctor’s nod and treated him like a fetich of power. 


In his love-begotten humility it seemed to Deane 
that no man in the world had ever had arrayed 
against him so formidable a team. With the 
strongholds of theology and medicine manned 
there seemed no place for him about Joyce save on 
the dead level of common-place generality. 

“ What the devil can I do ?” he demanded savagely 
of himself. “ Green blazes the way to heaven for 
her soul, and Hatton stands by to cooper up her 
body, so she gets looked after, hive, comb and 
honey. How’s a fellow like me going to please a 
woman ? She don’t want machinery — which is all I 
can make — nor to hear me talk about attraction, 
cohesion, or the conservation of force. There isn’t 
anything unknowable about mechanical science. I 
can’t fire her imagination with wheels and thumb- 
screws divorced from suffering humanity and reli- 
gious persecution. I might perfect my inventions, 
make a big name and reputation, and lay all at her 
feet perhaps. But that would take time, and a mind 
at peace with itself, neither of which I’ve got. I’ve 
got to hustle in this matter or I’ll be left, and my 
mind is all scattered about now-a-days, like a covey 
of birds that’s been shot into.” 

It seemed worse scattered than ever when, one 
afternoon just before Christmas, he beheld Joyce in 
procession with five little Greens moving down on 
the church, like Birnam wood upon Dunsinane, 
with branches of yew, arbor- vitae, and holly. 

He was in one of the village stores when she 
passed, talking with a knot of men and making pur- 
chases of hardware. And when one of the group, a 


JOYCE'S LOVERS. 


n 


harmless fellow in intention and consequently per- 
nicious in speech, essayed inconsequent and ill-con- 
structed witticisms anent “ever -greens” and “bowers 
of domestic bliss,” he allowed his temper to get the 
better of him so far as to cause him to drop a small 
crow-bar he held in such fashion that the point of it 
smote the floor at an angle which necessitated its 
gravitating directly onto the toes of the jester, the 
howl of whose anguish soothed his perturbation 
somewhat, and brought balm to his spirit. 

The joker hopped miserably about with his foot 
in his hand and declined to accept any apology 
whatever, acrimoniously giving it as his opinion 
that a fellow “ so damned slack-fisted that he 
couldn’t hold things, oughtn’t to handle ’em.” He 
scowled upon his neighbors too, and fiercely rebuked 
such as indulged in the unseemliness of laughter. 


7 a 




CHAPTER VIII. 

A SCOTCH VALENTINE. 

Mr. Voss was a gentleman of old-fashioned tastes 
in literature, and in guiding his protege’s reading, 
apart from the professional grind, had early intro- 
duced him to a school of romancers scarcely appre- 
ciated by the youth of the present generation. The 
timbre of Rutherford’s mind being what it was, 
and his early training among simple conditions, the 
stories of a past generation suited him rarely. He 
reveled in the sentiment, the devotion, the subordi- 
nation of self to ideals which they portrayed, and 
was in sympathy with the action and stir, and even 
with the blows and the roughness. 

Casting about in his mind for some still untried 
method of honoring his lady, recollection of the 
armorer’s Valentine to the Fair Maid of Perth came 
to him, and he craftily determined to score one 
against his rivals by preparing a similar gift for 
Joyce. The ruby heart he would secure from a 
New York lapidary, but the casket he would fashion 
himself, substituting silver for the fine steel which 
the armorer had used, as being more malleable and 
better adapted to his less skillful smithscraft. He 
would have the token conveyed to her anonymously 
and trust to her power of divination for informing 
her whence it had come. 


A SCOTCH VALENTINE. 


73 


The idea pleased him immensely and he glorified 
himself, feeling confident that nothing so clever and 
suggestive would occur to those dullards, his rivals, 
who were given over utterly to nineteenth century 
methods. 

Joyce’s penetration did justice to Rutherford’s 
trust in it. She guessed intuitively the donor of the 
beautiful bauble which came to her by post on St. 
Valentine s day. She happened to be alone when 
the mail-bag was handed in by the small African 
whose duty it was to fetch the mail from the vil- 
lage, and she sorted out her own from the family 
letters, and repaired with them to her own room. 

It was a quaint old room, and of late Joyce had 
fallen into the way of spending a good deal of her 
time in it, courting solitude as some natures do 
when mysteriously quickening to change. It was 
a pretty room, too, with a curtained alcove to one 
side, wherein stood the toilet accessories, a ceiling 
wondrous high-pitched, and a chimney that jutted 
out, giving deep recesses on either hand which had 
been made into closets, whose lower sections would 
have made excellent hiding-places for tramps with 
house-breaking proclivities, and whose shelves 
might only be reached at risk of life and limb. 

The mantel was of white marble, its front carven 
into medallions and cherubs’ faces set between 
wings, and its shelf supported by slender Corinthian 
columns, set well forward on the hearth, and giving 
to the structure the aspect of a portico to a temple. 
An open fire burned under it and made a center of 
brightness and attraction to the room. In a low 


74 


rocking-chair, Joyce sat and dreamed dreams. She 
had examined and cast aside most of her mail, but 
in her lap lay folds of soft paper, an open box half- 
filled with pink cotton and a purse of fine silver 
links, cunningly wrought and as flexible as a glove. 
Its clasp was an arrow, on the shaft of which were 
graven Greek characters which Joyce had it borne 
in upon her consciousness must mean love and 
loyalty. Perhaps her linguistic perception was 
sharpened by the object lesson of the ruby heart, 
which lay in her palm glowing and scintillating 
wherever the light struck it, and burning with a 
glorious and radiant fire. It told its own story 
plainly enough, warming her imagination with its 
beauty and suggesting thoughts and fancies that 
made her tremble and quiver. She wondered why 
it had been sent to her unset, and whether it had 
been intended simply as a token ? On the whole 
she thought this probable, and instantly decided to 
keep the secret of its possession sacred with her own 
soul until time should bring about other disclosures. 
She got out her work-basket and fashioned a recep- 
tacle of chamois-skin, on which she copied the Greek 
text in embroidery of silk. Into this she put the 
heart-shaped jewel, securing it with a narrow rib- 
bon of blue, drawn tight, but left with a long loop. 

The silver purse she locked away in her desk — 
what she did with the heart, let other maidens 
answer. 

Her next meeting with Rutherford was in church 
with people around them and the soft pulsings of 
the organ filling the air and lifting, be it hoped, all 


A SCOTCH VALENTINE. 


75 


souls and desires toward heaven. Joyce led the 
little choir, and when she stood up to sing Ruther- 
ford turned in his place and looked at her. For an 
instant the hazel eyes held the brown, questioningly, 
assertively, and then the woman’s lashes drooped as 
though to meet and shadow the crimson flood which 
surged from her heart to her cheeks. The man rose 
quietly and went out from among the people to get 
into some still place and think. 

He saddled the red mare and rode out into the 
country, turning his face instinctively towards Tuck- 
ahoe Mountain and letting the animal choose her 
own gait. Without a spoken word his story had 
been told, and he must await now some sign from 
her. 


76 




CHAPTER IX. 

FROM OFF’n TUCKAHOE. 

“ Joyce, I wish you’d come and look at Edmund,” 
Mrs. Ruthven called, sending her voice anxiously 
along the passage from the nursery door. 

Joyce was dusting and setting things to rights in 
the parlor, one of her customary after breakfast 
duties. She responded at once. 

“ What is it ?” 

“ Edmund. Do come and look at him. I’m afraid 
it’s something worse than a cold or indigestion. It 
looks more serious.” 

As soon as she looked at the child, Joyce shared 
this opinion. 

“ How long has he been like this ? ” she ques- 
tioned. 

“ Not long. He was sickish, once or twice, during 
the night, complained of his head and his throat 
and was restless. I gave him the usual remedies 
for nausea and headache, and this morning I would 
not let Belinda wake him up. Fred thought it was 
indigestion, and so did I at first. But I don’t now. 
Just feel how hot his head is, and his hands are 
really parched.” 

The little fellow lay supine, his limbs relaxed, his 
curly head thrown backward and his dry lips parted. 


FROM OFF' N TUCKAHOE. 


77 


His breath was hurried, his temples beat, and his 
condition suggested stupor rather than sleep. J oyce 
laid her hand on his forehead and then on his wrist. 

“ Count his pulse, Louise,” she whispered, and 
gave place. 

Mrs. Ruthven’s lips moved in the count, the ex- 
pression of anxiety on her face deepening to alarm 
as the number went up and up. A negro girl, who 
had been hushing an infant to sleep in the next 
room, laid her charge in the cradle and came into 
the nursery, carefully closing the door of communi- 
cation between the two rooms. The larger children 
were at play in the yard. 

Belinda came to the bedside, looked down at the 
little boy and, obedient to the instinct of her race, 
proceeded to “sit down on the ground” with them 
after the manner of Bildad, Eliphaz and the man of 
Naam. 

“ Dar’s a mighty heap o’ scarlet fever gwine 
’bout,” she dismally announced. “ Heap o’ de 
Winock chil’en, colored an’ white, is down wid it. 
It’s spreadin’ right peart, too. Dem little Wood- 
wrights over in de hollow all got it.” 

She jerked her head sideways to indicate a settle- 
ment of poor whites three miles away. 

The ladies looked panic-stricken. 

“ Who told you ? ” Joyce queried in consternation. 

“Unk ’Lige. He fetched de word las’ night, an’ 
’lowed we-all better keep we-all’s chil’en at home 
mighty close, bein’ as ’twas a bad sort an’ pow’ful 
ketchin’.” 

Mrs. Ruthven wrung her hands. 


“Joyce, do you think he has it?” she whispered, 
with fear in her eyes. 

Joyce was a helpful woman, high-mettled and 
swift in decision and action. She was a woman for 
emergencies, likewise, for her wits never scattered, 
and she appeared to fall into the readiest methods 
by instinct, as it were. She soothed her sister at 
once, albeit the occasion seemed to her grave. 

“Perhaps not, dear. He hasn’t been anywhere, 
or seen any other children for days. He’s sick, and 
the doctor must be sent for, but I wouldn’t frighten 
myself before it’s necessary. Where’s Fred ? ” 

“ Gone over to the stone-quarry across the river, 
and he won’t be back until dinner-time. He had to 
see a lot of people on business.” 

“ And the men ? ” 

This question was put to Belinda, who true to her 
role promptly made them aware that in mankind, 
as represented on the plantation, there was no hope. 

“ Unk ’Lige had gone to mill an’ tooken Torm wid 
him,” and the balance of the hands were over in the 
ten-acre lot seeding wheat. Old Dr. Hatton was ill 
also, confined to his room and his chair with gout. 
“ Unk ’Lige ” had told her. 

“Gracious me, Belinda!” Joyce exclaimed im- 
patiently, “will you never be done piling on the 
agony ? You’re worse than an owl on the roof, or a 
dog howling under the windows ! Don’t fret, Louise ! 
I’m going for Craige. Rebel is in the stable and I 
can saddle him myself. Have the children moved 
to my side of the house, and quarantine until we 
find out what’s the matter. I’ll get Craige if I have 


FROM OFF' N TUCKAHOE. 


79 

to chase him all over the county, and ride like the 
wild huntsman.” 

In spite of maternal solicitude and preoccupation, 
Mrs. Ruthven followed Joyce to the door with a 
protest. 

“You’ve never ridden Rebel before, Joyce, and 
I’m afraid for you. He might throw you. Fred 
says he’s dangerous.” 

But Joyce paid no heed. She did not stop to 
change her dress for a habit, or get a hat. A little 
cap of Edmund’s lay on the hall table and she caught 
it up as she passed. The saddle-room was down 
next to the stable and the door of it was never 
•locked. Rebel, a big blood-bay with a vicious eye 
and nostrils that flared with every breath, stood in his 
stall. As though to belie his unamiable reputation 
he allowed himself to be saddled and mounted with- 
out protest. He bore his rider gallantly too,, cover- 
ing the ground with grand space-devouring strides, 
and taking his fences like a bird, for J oyce preferred 
to take no risks with his temper by forcing him to 
maneuver with gates. She rode straight to the vil- 
lage, knowing Craige Hatton’s methodical habits 
and confident that, even if he should be out, his 
whereabouts might be learned from the directions 
on his office slate. Her mind was filled with anxiety, 
and with thoughts of the child. 

Young Dr. Hatton’s office was in a shabby little 
frame building next to the village tavern, from 
which it was separated by six feet of space and a 
stout paling fence, which angled with a front fence 
on the street. The tavern was a commodious build- 


8o 




ing with a porch extending all along its front, which 
was the rendezvous of all men who found their 
neighbors’ affairs more interesting than, their 
own. 

A group of three were congregated there in the 
sunshine, as J oyce rode up. Two sat on chairs with 
their heels up, and the third perched on the railing 
with his back to the street. Taking it for granted 
that the trio were village men and well known to 
her, Joyce sent her voice across to them in instant 
demand of assistance. 

“My horse won’t stand,” she called, “and I’ve 
come for the doctor. Will one of you kindly see if 
he’s in his office for me ? Or, if he isn’t, bring me 
out his slate.” 

The men in chairs brought these useful articles 
down on all fours with a clatter, and substituted 
their elbows for their heels on the railing. The 
man who perched, swung himself round on his 
center of gravity, dropped to the ground outside of 
the porch and came forward. As he approached, 
Joyce could see that he was a roughly clad fellow, 
with a keen, strongly featured face and a straggling 
beard of tawny chestnut. He was a stranger to 
her, but he seemed civil enough and touched his 
weather-beaten hat as he inquired what it might be 
that she wanted. Joyce repeated her statement, 
supplementing her request with a few directions. 
The man, being a stranger, was of course unfamiliar 
with the doctor’s habits. 

While he went on her quest, she glanced cursorily 
at the other two men, with the thought in her mind 


FROM OFF'N TUCKAHOE. 


81 


that they might be workmen from the new factory 
now nearing completion just outside of the village. 
Her brother had said that many new people would 
be moving in now that the works were getting fairly 
under-way. From where she sat she could see the 
long slate-covered roof of one of the huge buildings 
wherein Rutherford spent most of his days. She 
wondered if he were there now, and then, catching 
a scrap of conversation between a couple of passing 
workmen, learned that he had gone up to Montau- 
bon the day before to see Brainard, Voss & Co. 
about the shipment of machinery for the new 
works. The men passed on, and her horse fidgeted 
so that she could not hear when Rutherford was 
expected to return. 

Dr. Hatton was out — over at his father’s, the slate 
stated. Her messenger held it up for her inspec- 
tion from the inside of the fence, for Rebel, teased 
by the delay, was beginning to show the whites of 
his eyes and to snatch at his bit in a way which dis- 
couraged approach. 

As she acknowledged his courtesy, Joyce felt 
moved to inquire of this stranger whether or not he 
worked at Mr. Rutherford’s factory. 

The man shook his head. 

“ I knows Deane Rutherford well enough,” he de- 
clared. “ Leastways I usecT to know him risin’ ten 
ye’r ago. But I ain’t never worked fur him none. 
Ther boot’s been on t’other leg. I come from off ’n 
Tuckahoe,” nodding in the direction of the moun- 
tain. “ I’ve got a shop up thar an’ does black- 
smithin’ and craps. T’other fellows craps alto- 


82 


gether. We-all come over here to look aroun’, 
hearin’ Rutherford hed done so well,” he smiled, 
showing tobacco-stained teeth. 

Joyce repeated her thanks and rode off. She 
knew that Rutherford’s beginnings had been hum- 
ble; he had described them to her, taking pride, as 
a man should, in the way he had pulled away from 
them. Joyce cared little about such matters. Many 
families of Virginia had fallen into poverty, gone 
down in the trough of the wave and come up again. 
Rutherford was coming up, and as the name, to her 
ear, seemed to stand for itself, she had simply 
listened to that which she was told and taken things 
at prima facie value. 

And just now her thoughts were preoccupied by 
anxiety. 

At the turn of the road, where it quitted the vil- 
lage, she encountered Dr. Craige Hatton returning 
to his office. He listened to her story, but appeared 
considerably more disturbed by seeing her mounted 
on Rebel than he was by her representation of 
Edmund’s condition. He would return with her at 
once, he said, but first she must consent to exchange 
horses with him. It curdled his blood to see her on 
that ill-conditioned brute. 


JIM TROTTER'S TIGHT PLACE. 


83 


CHAPTER X. 

JIM trotter’s tight place. 

Little Edmund’s disease proved itself to be 
scarlet fever, and Dr. Craige Hatton assumed 
direction of the household at once, giving orders, 
superintending arrangements and establishing a 
quarantine. Mrs. Ruthven’s first terrified impulse 
was to bundle Joyce and the other three children 
out of the house and the neighborhood in flight 
from the wrath to come, but this Dr. Hatton would 
not permit. The disease was epidemic, he said, and 
the other children had already been as much ex- 
posed to the infection as Edmund had. The baby 
also was still dependent on her mother, and it would 
be a risk to deprive her of her natural food. There 
would be no necessity for anything more than strict 
sanitary precautions. 

In his decision Joyce backed up the doctor with 
energy. She did not want to go away, unless the 
necessity should be positive. Her love for the boy 
held her as with fetters of steel, and she felt that it 
would almost break her heart to be banished from 
his bedside. To that which she loved Joyce was 
wedded body and soul. Craige’s ultimatum there- 
fore contented her, and for the first time in her life 
she felt grateful to him. She even busied herself to 


8 4 




plant and cultivate confidence in his professional 
skill. 

“ Craige was always a bright boy,” she admitted 
to her sister. “ And his father says he thoroughly 
understands his business. I don’t think dear, honest 
old Dr. Hatton would vouch even for Craige if he 
wasn’t sure of him.” 

“Of course he wouldn’t,” Louise assented. 
“You’ve just let yourself get in the habit of belit- 
tling Craige because he played with you, and is only 
three days older than you are. It’s horridly unjust 
and I always said so. I’d rather have the old doctor 
because he’s most experienced; but as I can’t get 
him, I’m thankful for Craige. He’s a good fellow 
and clever. I’m sure he will do everything in the 
power of man for Edmund.” 

Joyce was glad to be reinforced by such confi- 
dence. Underneath all her surface self-control she 
was alarmed and nervous, and Dr. Hatton was 
neither — a fact which speedily impressed itself upon 
her and stiffened her courage. It stimulates a 
woman to feel that a man can take an emergency 
into his hands and regulate it. 

Dr. Hatton himself would have been more, or 
less, than human not to have secretly exulted a little 
in the opportunity to pose before his sweetheart and 
compel her admiration and respect. It’s an ill wind 
that blows nobody good. 

“ Rutherford’s business at Montaubon did not 
occupy him many hours, so that he returned to 
Winock in the afternoon of the day following the 
one on which he had left it. He went from the 


JIM TROTTER'S TIGHT PLACE. 85 

station to the factory direct, and so missed hearing 
the comment which was elicited by Joyce’s visit to 
the village. He had brought her a gift of flowers 
and fruit from the city, which he despatched by a 
messenger immediately on his arrival. In response 
he received a little note from Joyce. She thanked 
him with sweet cordiality for his thought of her, 
and then told him of Edmund’s illness, and that the 
disease being contagious it would be necessary to 
quarantine. Friends must not come to the house, 
she said; it might be dangerous for them. 

Rutherford put the note into the inside pocket of 
his vest without a thought of what might be the 
consequences. He would ride out to Manitoba, as 
the Ruthven plantation was called, in the morning. 
He wished to express sympathy and proffer services 
in person. He wished also to discover, if possible, 
just how much danger for Joyce was involved in 
this happening. Since that look into her eyes the 
previous Sunday he had unconsciously begun to 
arrogate to himself rights; to feel that power of 
interference and dictation in her affairs, in some 
sort, was already his. He did not define the feeling 
to himself; he only involuntarily acted upon it. 
Yes, he would ride out to Manitoba the following 
day. Joyce must be made to feel that he stood at 
her side, anxious for and with her. 

Man proposes readily enough, making plans as 
unto him seemeth good, and taking small account of 
aught save the present and future. Unwitting is he 
that behind his elbow, sardonic of countenance, 
stands ever some deed of his past, ready to admin- 


86 




ister a reminiscent jog which will send his hand 
fatefully to some knight or pawn on the board 
which has stood so long time idle as, apparently, to 
have lost significance in the game. The touch once 
renewed, and presto! in an instant all is changed; 
the forgotten piece leaps supremely into promi- 
nence, and on its manipulation, the player feels, 
hangs the fate of all things. 

The late mail brought letters which kept Ruther- 
ford busy until nearly dark. When it got too dark 
to write, he pushed his papers away and leaned back 
in his chair to indulge in ten minutes’ castle-building 
ere he should lock up the place and betake himself 
to his supper and his bed. The electric lights had 
not been put into the building yet, for it was still 
far from completion, but there were lamps, filled 
and trimmed, in a press in the corner, ready to hand 
when Rutherford should choose to bestir himself. 

The sun had set clear, with a crimson aftermath, 
which banded the horizon and glowed upward, re- 
splendent as forest trees when the frost has touched 
them to color. Rutherford faced the window and 
watched the light die down and fade through the 
chromatic scale from crimson to violet behind the 
summit of Tuckahoe Mountain. 

His mood was happy and hopeful, for to all seem- 
ing it was well with him. As a running accom- 
paniment to his thoughts and plans he whistled, 
sotto voce , a rollicking old tune which Jim Trotter 
had been wont to pick on his banjo, when the forge- 
fire had smoldered down to embers under its sooty 
hood and the men sat in their shirt-sleeves outside, 


JIM TROTTER'S TIGHT PLACE. 


87 


and watched the daylight draw away and disappear 
behind Tuckahoe as he was watching it now. His 
thought was not of the past and his music was 
involuntary, a mere surface renewal of sequence, 
with an, as yet, unrecognized significance. He was 
thinking of Joyce, and also of an invention over 
which his brain had been straining its powers for 
years, and which, in one of its parts, had heretofore 
defied him to get it into working order. Love 
quickens all things spiritual to germination, so that 
with the introduction of its force into his nature 
Rutherford’s intellect, as well as his heart, arose as 
a giant refreshed with wine, and girded itself for 
conquest. The evening before, as he quitted the 
Machine-and- Iron- Works, after his talk with Mr. 
Voss, he had turned in through the gateway, under 
whose dingy arch he had first beheld Joyce, and 
made his way to the shops for a word and a joke 
with his old confreres. One of the workmen had 
called his attention to a queer breakage of one of 
the machines, and asked his opinion about it. 
Rutherford had become interested and examined 
into the matter minutely, and while he was doing so 
his own mechanical difficulty cracked its calyx and 
definitely budded. 

There and then he had taken out his pencil, and 
in default of a tablet jotted his thought on the linen 
of his shirt- cuff, as other men have done amid 
thrills of excitement. This idea, practically worked 
out and applied to his model, would perfect a ma- 
chine which would ease the labor of thousands, and 
bring to its inventor both honor and emolument. 


88 


Who then could say that Joyce Ruthven would 
demean herself by marriage with him ? Being a 
Virginian, none knew better than Rutherford how 
strong is the traditional pride of families; and in 
particular he was well aware that Fred Ruthven, at 
least, assumed quietly that the human race had 
flowered in the family of Ruthven. 

Rutherford did not underrate the force of tradi- 
tion and association, or the credit of respectable 
fore-bears; all that was an enormous help to a man 
in his start; but after the start it was the force of 
the man himself that told. In the battle in which 
each stands, so to speak, on his own legs and fights 
for his own hand it is individual prowess which tells. 
Rutherford was too manly and self-respecting a 
man to believe any good too high for his aspiration 
simply because his start had been from the ground. 
Then, too, he knew that of all democrats love is the 
most consistent. 

His thoughts rattled on to the swing of his melody, 
which had unconsciously increased in volume and 
trilled out with a joviality which would have done 
honor to Jim Trotter himself. In fancy he was 
receiving compliments and commendations from 
big- wigs at home and abroad, and engineering his 
love affair to a white satin and orange-flower termi- 
nation, when he was startled by the sudden darken- 
ing of the window in front of him by a man’s head 
and shoulders. In the semi-obscurity he could not 
recognize the face looking in at him, and rose hastily 
to strike a light, conscious of the provoked, taken- 
at-advantage feeling which always comes to a person 


JIM TROTTER'S TIGHT PLACE. 


89 


covertly regarded. When he turned back to the 
window the face was gone, and he heard footsteps 
passing onward to the factory door. One of the 
hands, no doubt, trying to discover whether or not 
the office was still open. He dismissed the incident 
as unimportant, but it had put all his fancies to 
flight, so he busied himself straightening up his 
desk and getting ready for leaving. 

The footsteps advanced along the entrance pass- 
age, and the office door was fumbled with, as by an 
unfamiliar hand, and then opened. Rutherford 
turned, as a tall, roughly clad mountaineer with a 
tawny chestnut beard entered, and uttered an ex- 
clamation of surprise. Toby Blake laughed and 
came forward with hand extended. 

“Howdy, Deane! Howdy!” he said with exu- 
berant cordiality. “ We-all come over to see you, 
bein as we-all was in ther neighborhood, projeckin’ 
an' dealinV’ 

“Who is we-all ? ” questioned Rutherford, accept- 
ing the blacksmith’s brawny fist in the spirit in 
which it was offered, and genuinely glad to see him 
again. 

Himself and two others — Nathan Clark and ’Bijah 
Wheelwright, Blake explained. Deane remembered 
them of course, ’Bijah and Nat; they had been boys 
along with him up on the mountain. 

Rutherford remembered ’Bijah and Nat distinctly 
and said so. And when he learned further that the 
original destination of the mountaineers had been 
the village wherein was situated the court-house of 
Tuckahoe County, and that, chancing to hear of his 


9 o 




proximity, these old friends had tramped twenty 
miles farther to see him, he was distinctly gratified. 
He made Toby feel welcome and at home at once, 
establishing him in the best chair the office afforded 
and plying him with questions about home, the 
people there, their doings and happenings. 

Blake was gratified in his turn. When the stylish, 
prosperous get-up of his whilom apprentice -first 
clearly revealed itself to his vision he had, for an 
instant, felt flustered and half-regretful of coming. 
Deane might not be glad to see them — might “ feel 
his oats ” too much to care about renewing old asso- 
ciations. Underneath his cordiality he had been 
prepared to be touchy, and resentful of anything 
like condescension. And here was Deane sitting on 
the edge of his table (while he — -Toby — occupied 
the chair of state) and taking as much interest in 
Judith-Ann Kimball’s “weddin’ infa’r,” and the 
champion “ shuckin’ match over to Backwater Cove ” 
as though he were still a grimy-fisted youngster sit- 
ting in his shirt sleeves on an up-turned tub in the 
smithy yard. 

Ensnared by Dean’s simplicity, the blacksmith’s 
opinion waxed warm and glowing, like his own 
forge-fire when there is a likely hand at the bellows. 
He mentally resolved that Deane Rutherford, “ take 
him which-er-way you will, was* straight grained 
timber, ’thout’n nary frost-rift, nor wind-shook place 
in him.” 

An opinion destined to stand Deane in good stead 
before long. 

When the neighborhood had been pretty well 


JIM TROTTER'S TIGHT PLACE, 


9i 


gossiped over, Rutherford chanced to put a casual 
question as to what might have brought the men 
down to the Court-House village, in the very mar- 
row of the plowing season, when Circuit Court 
would not be in session for a month yet. In his day 
the blacksmith, not being a litigious man, had 
bothered himself mighty little about ordinary 
County Court days. Deane hoped that none of his 
old acquaintances was in trouble. 

Then he learned that Jim Trotter, the man of banjo 
notoriety, was in “ a most tremenjeous tight place ” — 
had in fact been jailed on a pretty serious charge. 
The neighborhood, as is customary when a man 
gets into trouble, held itself critically aloof, thrilled 
with curiosity and interest and moved copiously to 
speech; but in action supine and quite willing that 
Jim should manage his crisis by himself. In the 
vernacular, “ T’others mostly shabbed off, an’ sot 
back watchin’ which-er-way the cat was gwine to 
jump,” but Blake could not do that way. Jim’s 
wife was own cousin to the blacksmith’s wife, and 
the women had been raised together like sisters 
down in the Cove and “set sto’ ” by one another. 
When Blake’s baby died it had been in Lelia Trot- 
ter’s arms, and she had shrouded and prepared the 
tiny corpse for burial. And when Trotter’s daugh- 
ter got married Nannie Blake had “ waited on ” her, 
and the entire Blake family had been taken into 
confidence and consultation about the “ infa’r ” and 
other matters long before the rest of the district. 
In all their simple happenings of joy or grief the 
women had stuck by one another, and even when 


9 2 


_ f — 

ten years before Jim had blossomed suddenly into 
prosperity and paid off the mortgage on his land 
and set up a saw-mill, Jim’s wife had not allowed 
increased estate to sever her from her old friend. 
Therefore when trouble of the most direful had 
overtaken Jim, the very first of all the community 
to rally to the support of the house of Trotter was 
naturally the house of Blake. 

In his secret soul the blacksmith had a poor 
opinion of Jim himself, holding him to be “most 
too abstracted arter money to be much o’ a man”; 
but his fealty to Trotter’s womenkind was stanch 
and unimpeachable. Under the influence of it he 
had taken advantage of a proposition of Nat’s and 
’Bijah’s to accompany them down to the village 
“fur a projeck, an’ a mite o’ dealin’.” He would 
visit his old neighbor in prison and find out how he 
was taking matters, and also, if possible, get at the 
rights of the thing at first hand. 

“ Thar ain’t nobody gwine to take a man’s part as 
squar’ an’ satisfactory as what he do hisse’f,” Blake 
observed. “Not even his wife can’t do it, fur a 
’ooman gits to cryin’ or quar’lin’, an’ never sees 
nothin’ reasonable ’long o’ wantin’ to slaughter ther 
world for interruptin’ what they air gi’n over to 
lovin’. But er man’s dif’ent. He kin hold a can’le 
up to ’stenuatin’ sarkumstences, so as a body kin 
make shift mostly to see ’em. An’ thar’s alius 
’stenuatin’ sarkumstences. Thet’s ther law an’ ther 
gospel. An’ even if some of ’em is lies it don’t 
make much dif ’ence — they air apt to be merciful lies 
whenst a man tells ’em fur hisse’f.” 


JIM TROTTER'S TIGHT PLACE. 


93 


Blake smiled tolerantly. 

“ What’s he charged with ? Moon-shining ? ” Ruth- 
erford questioned. 

He remembered of old the perennial disagree- 
ment between the government and the hill-dwellers 
as to the use to be made of surplus field and orchard 
stuff; and the tenacity with which the latter clung 
to the right they fancied they had to do what they 
would with their own regardless of public conse- 
quences. Jim, doubtless, had been bucking against 
the revenue. 

Blake’s response to his question took him between 
the eyes, like a blow, and brought him up all stand- 
ing. 

“ ’Tain’t fur moon-shinin’, nor no foolishness o’ 
thet sort Jim hev been jailed,” the blacksmith ex- 
plained. “ ’Twouldn’t n^ry man on the mountain 
shabbed off from Jim fur lockin’ horns with ther 
revenue. Some laws air good enough, but ther law 
agin ’stillin’ your own truck air damned meddle- 
some, an’ ’twouldn’t no person er gone back on Jim 
fur dodgin’ it. This here matter air more serious. 
Jeemes Trotter hev been arrested an’ jailed fur the 
willful murder, robbery an’ burnin’ o’ Wolfe Ranke, 
the “blue-gum” whar we-all ’lowed pe’ished by fire, 
accidental, ten ye’r ago on Tuckahoe Mountain.” 


94 


2 — 


CHAPTER XI. 
ranke’s “ ha’rnt.” 

Deane took a turn about the room, apparently 
arranging matters for closing the office. His brain 
was in a whirl, and his pulses beat until it seemed to 
him that there w;ere so many trip-hammers going 
in different parts of his body; but he kept his man- 
ner quiet and self-contained by instinct. 

“What does Jim say about it himself?” he ques- 
tioned, after a moment. 

Toby laughed in derision. 

“That he never done it, inco’se,” he retorted. 
“What else? You don’t look fur a man to plead 
guilty on a charge like that fu’st pop, does you ? 
You 11 git disapp’inted if you does. Murder’s bad; 
but robbery an’ arson on a corpse air a damned 
sight wuss. Slaughterin’ a man in a fight an’ a tan- 
trum air allowable, bekase a fellow stands to git 
what he don’t give. To be kilt if he don’t kill. 
That’s even an' reg’lar. But this here indictment 
sets for’red thet Jeemes Trotter kilt Wolfe Ranke 
fust, then stole what he had, an’ then bu’nt up his 
dead an’ defenseless body to kiver his own tracks. 
To my nose that air a stinkin’ charge. An’ inco’se 
Jim swar s he never done it.” 

Rutherford dropped into a chair, and for many 
moments kept silence. He was going over the past 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNTA 


95 


and trying to get a grasp on it. He remembered 
well enough the consternation with which the news 
of the burning of Ranke’s cabin had been received 
at the smithy the morning of his own departure 
from the hills, and how the importance of his going 
had been dwarfed by this other thing. The word 
had been brought by a couple of hunters who lived 
in another cabin, across the river from Ranke’s and 
out of range of aught save what is called “ smoke- 
sight ” by country folks. That is, on clear days, and 
with green or wet wood on the fires, the occupants 
of one cabin could behold the smoke rise from the 
chimney of the other, all else being invisible. 

These men, kept at home by the storm, had 
noticed along about dusk considerable smoke over 
at Ranke’s, and later, when darkness made the glow 
perceptible in spite of the stuff falling between, 
they had seen a red flare lying against the sky in 
that direction which looked as though it might 
mean mischief. They had tried to go to the rescue, 
but could not get across the river, which was in 
freshet, and running logs and water at the rate of 
many miles an hour. By day-break, however, the 
weather had cleared and the water fallen sufficiently - 
to admit of their crossing by making a detour. 
They had gone straight to the clearing filled with 
excitement and curiosity as to what might have 
happened. The cabin was a heap of charred frag- 
ments and ashes, which still smoldered in spots, and 
the “ blue-gum ” was nowhere to be found. They had 
examined the hen-houses, the stable and the corn- 
crib, which constituted the out-buildings, but with 


9 6 




no result. Then they had hunted up a shovel and 
hoe and excavated a bit among the charred rubbish. 
In the comer where Ranke’s bed had stood, they 
had come speedily on blackened bones and ashes, 
which they vowed had a different look from that 
which lay around. To them it seemed evident that 
Ranke had been drunk and asleep at the time of the 
catastrophe. 

The matter had made a great flutter and talk at 
the smithy, and even the party of gentlemen had 
been interested and curious. It had not delayed 
their departure, however, which took place at the 
hour previously arranged. He — Deane — had come 
away with them and left it all behind. More than 
ten years had passed since that morning, and now 
here was the hideous thing confronting him again. 

The blacksmith went on talking and Rutherford 
appeared to listen, but did not; the words fell dully 
on his ears and conveyed no meaning to his brain. 
Some malevolent thing seemed to have stolen up on 
him from behind and dealt him a stupefying blow. 
He could not couple his past to his present with 
readiness. 

After a bit he pulled himself together and spoke. 
“What fastened this accusation on Jim?” he de- 
manded. “ How’d he get mixed up in the business, 
after ten years ? ” 

“ He war mixed up in it somehow at the time,” 
Toby pertinently replied. “ Thet much we’ll have 
to ’gree to allow, I reckon. It’s findin’ out just how 
little, or how much, he war mixed that is botherin’ 
me. Jim knows more’n he let on to we-all. We an’ 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNT 


97 


t’other boys sensed that frum the start-out. Jim 
knows, even if he didn’t do.” 

“ How much do you know ? ” Rutherford queried, 
his tone even and impassive. 

Divested of all unnecessary circumlocution the 
story Blake told was substantially this: 

After the departure of the down-country bound 
party, the blacksmith, accompanied by the two 
hunters, made a circuit of the neighborhood, spread- 
ing the news far and wide A posse of citizens 
collected and repaired to Ranke’s clearing, headed 
by Simon Trueheart, the store-keeper, who was a 
justice of the peace. They examined the premises 
and commented freely, and when their curiosity was 
satisfied, collected all the bones they could find and 
held an inquest over them. Witness there was 
none save the two hunters, who testified as to the 
time when they first noticed the fire, so it was 
speedily decided that Ranke had come to his death 
iby burning, the origin of which was unknown, 
although, probably, due to some carelessness of the 
*“ blue-gum” himself. They further decided that as 
•the fire occurred before bed-time, and Ranke had 
apparently made no effort to save himself, he must 
have died under the influence of liquor. Then they 
dug a hole under a big walnut tree in the yard, and 
wrapping the bones in a horse-blanket, decently 
buried them. 

They also administered on his estate. The chick- 
ens, cow and residue of corn left in the crib was 
attached at once by the store-keeper, who showed 
in justification of his proceeding an account on his 


9 8 


books against Ranke. Other stock there was none. 
The “blue-gum” kept few animals, being constitu- 
tionally lazy and averse to the care of them. He usu- 
ally had a horse of a superior sort, for he was given 
to swift journeyings, hither and yon; but for three 
weeks before his death his stable had been empty. 
He had sold the iron-gray he had ridden for two 
years, alleging that the animal had become dull and 
too slow for him. Everybody knew he was in a 
light blaze of desire for Deane Rutherford’s red 
mare, and that he had offered the boy a good price 
for her. The mare was nearly thoroughbred, and 
like the pulse of his heart to Deane, so nobody won- 
dered that there had been no sale. 

About two weeks after the burning, the store- 
keeper sent a notice of Ranke’s death down to the 
county town by a horse-trader who was trafficking 
through the country, but whether it ever got into 
print no man upon the mountains could tell, for 
they depended still upon oral communication, and 
even the store-keeper, to whom printed language 
was open, only saw a newspaper now and then. 
Whether the notice went to the public or not it was 
barren of results, and as far as outside inquiry or 
interest went Ranke might have been the sole sur- 
vivor of an extinct race. Even the bit of land went 
without a claimant, and as no squatter cared to erect 
another cabin on the old site, or to pay taxes on 
property he could not get a title to, the clearing was 
deserted and left to the tenantry of beasts and 
birds. 

Nobody noticed as significant at the time that 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNT. 


99 


Jim Trotter took no part in the proceedings. Nor, 
when a short time after the burning, Jim lifted the 
mortgage on his farm and went into partnership 
with. Wilkins Peters in a saw-mill, did either event 
connect itself in the bucolic mind with the defunct 
“ blue-gum.” Trotter gave it out that an old aunt 
over in North Carolina had departed to the land of 
the blessed, leaving behind her a well-filled stocking 
or two, and they believed him. Why not ? Every- 
body knew that Trotter’s mother had come from 
the old North State, where she doubtless had kin- 
dred galore. And relatives, even relatives with 
golden stockings, must depart from them to greater 
glory sometimes. 

The years died one after another, but the memory 
of Wolfe Ranke died not with them. On the con- 
trary it flourished and battened on the public. His 
place might know him no more in the flesh; but in 
the spirit — ah! that was another matter, and one 
which made the mountaineers glance over their 
shoulders and move their legs nimbly whenever 
twilight overtook them in the ill-omened neighbor- 
hood of the clearing. Ranke’s “har’nt * walked 

How the impression originated none among the 
ignorant and superstitious could say; probably it 
\yas the post mortem working of the dread and aver- 
sion which had surrounded the “blue-gum ” in life. 
It took definite shape one evening at Trueheart’s 
store about a year after the conflagration. A knot of 
loungers were congregated there as usual, gossiping 
and verbally regulating the neighborhood. It was 
along about the edge of dark and the seance about 


to adjourn when Jim Trotter tumbled in among 
them in a livid sweat of terror. His hair bristled, 
his teeth chattered, and his breeches were in tatters 
from the briers and undergrowth he had leaped 
through in a tumultuous scramble down the moun- 
tain-side. It took three stiff drinks and some adroit 
humoring to brace Jim up to disclosure, but it came 
out at last in a rush of nervous excitement. 

He had been across to visit the hunters in their 
cabin on the far bluff, and by reason of pleasure in 
their society had overstaid his time, so that the sun 
was pretty well down when he started home. With- 
out thought in the matter he had taken the short- 
cut across the ford, up the incline to Ranke’s clear- 
ing and so on to the wood road. He had not been 
thinking of ghosts, or of Ranke, or anything “ on- 
nat’al,” and he was not afraid. The sun had dropped 
behind the hills, but it was light yet — plain daylight, 
although softly shadowed by evening. He had 
come up the path, his crop-eared dog gamboling 
ahead, and gotten one leg over the fence when the 
dog “ fa’rly hiested creation ” with the lonesomest, 
scaredest howl that ever canine uttered. Jim had 
looked about hurriedly, not knowing what to make 
of it, and thinking that a rattle-snake had struck 
the dog, who was scudding across the clearing side- 
ways, with his tail tucked and his head twisted back- 
ward, as though driven before a hard wind. He 
was so flustered it took him a full second to remem- 
ber that this was not rattle-snake season, and by 
that time his own eyes had encountered a sight 
which made his blood curdle and turn backward. 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNT 


IOI 


There, among the ashes and debris where the cabin 
had stood, as plainly as he saw them now, he had 
seen Wolfe Ranke, turning over the refuse with a 
spade, as though in search, and half-bending over, 
digging. 

“ What war he lookin’ for, does you reckon ? ” 
Nat Clark questioned eagerly. 

“His bones, in co’se!” ’Bijah interrupted, vexed 
with the fatuity of the question. 

Then somebody elaborated the theory that Ranke, 
being “ onnatural ” anyhow, and “tooken off sud- 
dint an’ awful,” might be bewildered and ill at ease 
in regard to his vanished mortality, and so have 
come back to look after it. Most people had friends 
and kindred who might be safely counted on to do 
a creditable part by the remains; but Ranke had no 
one. 

“We-all buried them bones good, an’ trompled 
down ther dirt an’ mounded it up,” Nat protested. 
“ Look-like Ranke ought’r know that — bein’ a speret 
an’ gifted.” 

Then the blacksmith himself, who was present, 
suggested that Ranke might not like the place 
where his remains had been put, “ seein’ ’twa’n’t no 
reg’lar graveyard whar t’other folks’ boneses was a 
lyin’ an’ a- waitin’ fur Jedgment Day. He mout 
think them bones o’ his’n would be lonesome away 
on ther mountain by tharselves.” Or his grave 
might cramp him. The hole they had dug would 
only have accommodated a two-year old child with 
comfort, and Ranke was a “ full-grow’d ” man. 

There was something pathetic about this view of 




the situation, which caused an uncomfortable and 
conscience-smitten silence. They felt somehow that 
they had not done a full neighborly part by Ranke, 
and that perhaps his spirit had just cause of com- 
plaint. The idea of being shunted off from even 
dead fellowship, and cramped into a place too small 
for them besides, was irksome. 

Trotter introduced a different train of thought 
by declaring querulously that he did not believe 
that the “ ha’rnt ” was dissatisfied with either the 
place or manner of his interment — the hole had 
been big enough for what had to go into it. He 
had not been meddling with the bones at all, and he 
must know their whereabouts as well as any of 
them. He had been digging in the ruins — search- 
ing for something. 

“You-all never found ’em all,” Trotter affirmed 
acrimoniously. “ Ther ashes war hot an’ you-all 
never looked good. Thar war toe j’ints missed, or 
fingers. He war lookin’ fur somethin’, an’ t’wa’n’t 
nothin’ else to look for. He never lost nothin’ 
’cept’n’ his life an’ his j’ints. You-all never looked 
good.” 

His tone and manner more than his words nettled 
them. Both were defiant, and, indirectly, accusa- 
tive, as though some reprehensible negligence on 
their part was responsible for Trotter’s scare. The 
mood of the listeners changed; they began to re- 
member that the man who reflected upon them had 
not turned a hand in the matter himself. They 
turned upon Jim at once and mocked at and made 
game of him, accusing him of “ skeerin’ ” at shad- 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNT, 


103 


ows and glamours of twilight. And one bold spirit 
even intimated that men had been known to sur- 
round themselves with flimsy notoriety by limitless 
lying. 

“ Ther ha’rnt chased you tol’r’ble peart, didn’t he, 
Jim?” one derided. “You air pow’ful harried to 
look at. Yer breeches air split up the laigs from 
hem to waistband an’ flops about like clo’es on a 
line. It air redic’l’us.” 

“What sort o’ time do a ghost make trackin’, 
Jim?” hooted another. “Do he amble slow, or 
come a-jumpin’ ? ” 

“Ther ha’rnt know’d Jim never picked up nary 
bone, an’ aimed to git even with him! ” 

“Lord-a-mussy! S’pose he had ketched up ’long 
o’ Jim an’ bit him! ” 

These suggestions evoked yells of laughter and 
more rough chaff. The idea of a man of Jim’s size 
skipping down through the laurel brakes with an 
active ghost in hot pursuit touched their sense of 
humor. It might have been a still hunt, but it must 
have been an exciting one. 

But despite their jeers the story stuck, and when 
it gradually came to be supplemented by other 
stories of the same trend, vouched for by other par- 
ties, the people quit smiling and began to frown 
down jokes. And when, after the third anniversary 
of Ranke’s death, the two hunters moved out and 
abandoned their cabin, giving as a reason that when 
the night came round, wet or dry, they could see 
the same red flare against the sky that they had 
seen at the time of the burning, the uncanny im- 


104 — • — 

pression solidified into fixed belief and the clearing 
was shunned even in broad daylight and by boys 
with rabbit- traps to set. 

The supernatural interest fluctuated, now sweep- 
ing in at full tide, and again ebbing almost away, 
but never ceasing altogether. It never amounted 
to anything tangible, at least not for years, but 
Ranke’s “ ha’rnt ” served to keep his memory alive 
in the minds of the people and his place open in the 
country-side. Being dead, he yet seemed most un- 
pleasantly alive. 

Events, like powder, may quietly lay in train for 
years, awaiting the spark which is to set all alight, 
up-tear the earth, and flash the atmosphere a-quiver, 
and when the explosion comes at last, more often 
than not, the spark of ignition will be the word of a 
woman’s mouth, spoken apropos of something utter- 
ly alien. 

About a mile from Jim Trotter’s house, in a little 
skirt of country known as the “burnt woods,” there 
lived a poor widow, with a great many children, 
named Watts. The family was notoriously thrift- 
less, and the woman herself — Miriam Watts — was 
the most shameless and persistent borrower under 
the canopy of heaven. From a making of coffee, 
or a needleful of thread, to the garments upon her 
neighbors’ backs and the beds which they lay upon, 
Miriam borrowed straight through, by and large. 
The people put up with it, albeit they grew restive 
at times, because she was a woman with “no man 
to do for her,” was poor, and had a house full of 
children. But being put up with, she encroached, 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNTA 


105 

as people of her kidney usually do, until at length 
she came to regard all help as her vested right, and 
to meet the smallest refusal with bitter and passion- 
ate resentment. Besides being a malignant bor- 
rower Miriam Watts was a gossip and termagant, 
and could do more mischief, with tongue and tem- 
per, in a week than other people could undo in a 
lifetime. 

The Trotters, living nearest at hand, were most 
frequently depredated upon, for it really amounted 
to that, and Lelia Trotter, albeit a patient woman 
and kindly with-all, was frequently moved to the 
declaration that it took “ a sight o’ religion ” to sus- 
tain in grace such as lived in the burnt woods vicin- 
ity. Sometimes, when the requests would be par- 
ticularly unwelcome and importunate, she would 
evade them by polite subterfuges, but she never 
plucked up spirit to kick resolutely against the 
pricks until one luckless Monday early in December. 

She had just gotten her week’s wash in the tubs, 
and the ingredients for a big making of soap to 
boiling merrily in a monstrous three-legged pot up- 
lifted on rocks in the back yard, and was feeling 
fore -handed and comfortable when two of the Watts 
boys appeared, bearing a pole between them, and 
also a message from their mother, to wit, that she 
had “ dripped a nice passel o’ lye, an’ got her truck 
all ready fur soap-b’ilin’, an’ would be obleeged to 
Miss Trotter fur the loan o’ her big soap kittle fur a 
week.” 

Mrs. Trotter was stirring her own soap in the 
identical kettle at the time, and remembered more- 


io6 




over that her neighbor had borrowed her property 
six months before to boil dye for carpet rags, and 
had only restored it, under protest, a short fortnight 
previously. It really seemed that there should be a 
limit. Under exasperation at the impudence of the 
thing she stirred so vigorously that the hot stuff in 
the kettle splashed up on her hand, eliciting an ex- 
clamation of pain which moved the young Watts 
mightily to laughter. 

Then religion proved but a vain pretense, and for 
a moment Lelia Trotter was given over utterly to 
.nature. She openly denounced Mrs. Watts as the 
“ meanes’ white ’ooman whar draw’d ther breath o’ 
life,” and opined that she would “plumb down to 
borry a settin’ hen off’n pipped aiges, or a corpse’s 
petticoat whenst a fune’al war # in session.” This 
statement she supplemented by a stinging message 
that she — Lelia — was “done tuckered out, pourin’ 
water in a leaky bar’l, an’ aimed to quit.” If Mrs. 
Watts felt herself “ obligated to have a big kittle all 
ther time she’d better buy one an’ own it.” 

As soon as the words were well out of her mouth 
Mrs. Trotter regretted them, for the woman was 
miserably poor, and she knew it. But the mischief 
was done then. 

When Miriam heard the words as reported by her 
offspring she fell into an exceeding great rage, and 
straightway proclaimed far and near that “ Lelia 
Trotter needn’t set herse’f up so highty-tighty 
’bove’n other people an’ be so onnayborly with her 
p’isen ole truck, bekase if truth war known an’ jus- 
tice done to daid an' livin’, thet truck wouldn’t be no 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNT '. 


107 


mo’ her'n ’en nothin’. Bein’ bought outright with 
money Jim Trotter didn’t have no right to, come by 
it how he might.” What did she mean ? Why she 
meant that it “war Jim Trotter an’ no yuther whar 
obligated Wolfe Ranke’s ha’mt to walk. An’ walk 
he would, plumb ’twell Trotter war jailed an’ con- 
victed an * sentenced fur a-slaughterin’ of him.” 
She would like to know how Lelia Trotter would 
feel then, after “mistreatin’ a lone widder-’ooman, 
whar didn’t have nobody, ’scusin’ chil’en, to take up 
fur her.” 

Miriam took up for herself so furiously that it 
really left nothing in that line to be desired. The 
neighbors pooh-poohed her accusation at first, but 
she persisted in it, being the malevolent sort of 
woman who will wreak vengeance for even sup- 
posed injury at all hazards. Her knowledge of past 
happenings was principally conjecture built up 
around one lonely fact, but she helped it out with 
hint and innuendo, concealing her paucity of infor- 
mation under a wealth of assertion, and bourgeon- 
ing with importance, as one who unlooses the seals 
of judgment. Having started the scandal through 
temper she stuck to it through obstinancy. 

The story flew from mouth to mouth, generating 
suspicion and hard judgment in its transit. A repu- 
tation assailed is a reputation maimed, if not totally 
destroyed, and the neighborhood began to look 
askance at Jim and to edge away from him. The 
bucolic memory is tenacious of trifles, and people 
began to remember and put together as significant 
infinitesimal things which at the time of happening 


108 ~- ? - 

seemed to make no impression. This new and sen- 
sational theory of Ranke’s death became popular 
and little else was talked of. Even the clearing 
was revisited, and the small grave which held the 
bones of the dead man, by squads of men and 
women who gossiped and wondered, and then got 
them home again before sunset for fear of the 
“ ha’rnt.” 

The scandal circled and dipped, like a leather- 
winged bat, until it finally alighted in the mind of 
Munroe Giles, the sheriff of the county, where it 
clung with beak and claws. This Giles was a self- 
sufficient, conceited sort of fellow, new to office, 
and mightily puffed up with the pride thereof. To 
himself he seemed the very break-water of the 
Commonwealth, her sole defense against the incom- 
ing of tides of calamity. Official duty was his 
watchword. And when official duty and personal 
inclination agreed to pull in double harness he 
shook the lines and chirruped to the team with 
energy. Trotter’s politics were different, and in the 
late election — a tight one — Jim had lumped his in- 
fluence into the scale of the sheriff’s opponent, 
which naturally gave Giles a poor opinion of his 
qualities of head and heart. Anxiety for the public 
weal, interplaying with the private grudge, produced 
in the sheriff such a frenzy of official zeal that he 
constituted himself the avenger of blood, con amore , 
and in this capacity journeyed up to the burnt woods 
to interview Miriam Watts. 

By this time the woman was nervous and fright- 
ened at the serious turn affairs had taken, and so, to 


RANKE'S “ HA'RNT : 


109 


reinforce herself, grew more blatant and assertive. 
And the upshot of the business was that Sheriff 
Giles betook himself to the proper authorities and 
lodged information on which a warrant was issued 
against James Trotter for murder and arson. 


no 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE UGLINESS OF SILENCE. 

This in brief was the history of Wolfe Ranke’s 
posthumous part in the happenings of the past ten 
years, and the substance of it was delivered by 
Blake in the pithy vernacular, with frequent harking- 
back and breaks for question and reply. When the 
narrative came finally to a close Rutherford made 
little or no comment. He briefly remarked that 
things looked mighty squally for Jim and that he 
was sorry for it. Then he locked up his office and 
conducted the blacksmith back to the tavern, where 
he renewed acquaintance with the other men and 
insisted that all three should consider themselves as 
his guests, for the old time’s sake. He gave them 
a good supper with things to eat and drink which 
they understood and liked, and afterward talked to 
them genially, exploiting old stories of boyish es- 
capades, and reminding them of happenings which 
had grown misty even in their less cumbered memo- 
ries. He discoursed of hunting and fishing, of crops, 
cattle and the revenue with an accuracy of detail 
which won mightily on his hearers. Insensibly they 
felt flattered and exalted in their own estimation, 
because this old play-fellow who had educated and 
done well for himself, still took active, intelligent 
interest in the homely life he had shared with them, 


THE UGLINESS OF SILENCE. 


hi 


and was in no wise ashamed of it. They felt at one 
with themselves and with him, and inwardly con- 
vinced that they also could have made as fine a 
record had they been so minded. They voted him 
“a prime runnin’ o’ juice, cle’r an’ sound frum ther 
still, an’ mellowed conformable.” 

Had Rutherford set himself, with an ulterior mo- 
tive, to make a good impression on these men of the 
soil, he would doubtless have failed, for your true 
rustic is at once astute and suspicious. But he did 
not. The part of his old life with which they had 
to do was pleasant- to him, and always had been. 
The things he talked to them about were things 
that he loved — the clean, vigorous life of the hills. 
He had no need to dissemble, or to simulate in- 
terest. 

Reminiscences of field and forest kept that other 
subject at bay, moreover, and was a refuge from 
thought. Deane was intensely conscious through it 
all that at his elbow stood an emergency of the 
grimiest, awaiting recognition, and to be faced and 
grappled with. He was conscious of its presence in 
every fibre of his flesh, every drop of his blood; 
but, for the nonce, he turned from it doggedly. 
Time enough to think later, he told himself, time 
enough to struggle for life or death with this hideous 
necessity when he should have braced himself a little 
by ignoring it. He would have to meet it, and he 
would meet it; but not yet. 

Even after the mountaineers had sought their 
beds and he was alone in his own room, he dallied 
and delayed. He got out his model and set it in 


1 12 




motion, trying to fix his mind on force and cohesion, 
and to make calculations the most abstruse. He 
wrote a business note which he had neglected at the 
office, and then picked up a book and essayed to nail 
his attention to printed lines and characters. 

It was no use, however; the hideous thing had 
been warded off to its limit. Now it thrust itself 
forward with determination and locked with him for 
the death-struggle. 

With merciless distinctness memory showed him 
that which had been. Again he was a young strip- 
ling paying farewell visits of friendliness to all his 
old associates. Again he entered Ranke’s clearing 
and was met tumultuously by the deer-hounds. 
Ranke came forward, a smile of welcome on his 
swarthy face, a light of hospitality in his pale, sinis- 
ter eyes. They entered the cabin in friendliest 
converse, and he exulted in his plans and prospects 
while the “ blue-gum ' 5 listened. They had dinner 
together, eating from the same dish, and drinking 
from the same cup, so to speak. After that the 
storm had come on again. He and Ranke had 
chatted and he had twitted his host with the mean- 
ness and inefficiency of his tongs. Then they had 
played cards — Old Sledge — for money, and he had 
won. He had drank whiskey, too — a great deal of 
whiskey, and he was not used to it. He had won 
and won, the cards seeming bewitched for his bene- 
fit. Finally he had been seduced into making a 
mad bet — into staking that which he loved best on 
the run of those miserable bits of pasteboard, and 
he had lost, 


THE UGLINESS OF SILENCE. 


Once more he felt the stunned misery of those 
first moments of unlooked for defeat. Once more 
he pleaded with the victor, and offered double and 
quadruple the value of the red mare as her ransom. 
Once more he was scoffed at and derided until 
his temper rose and blinded him. The fierce 
fury of the fight returned, followed by the wild 
unreasoning terror and dread which the foaming 
mouth and canine demonstrations of his foe had. in- 
spired. 

From the rest his mind shied away. Not from 
remorse, not in repentance, but in sheer human 
shrinking from horror — it had been so awful! He 
no more regretted killing his foe than he would 
have regretted killing a rattle-snake coiled to strike, 
or a rabid animal seeking to bury its fangs in his 
flesh. That had been what Ranke had seemed to 
him at the last — a rabid, dangerous brute. He had 
always held himself justified for the deed which he 
had done. 

In the light of its consequences, there was one 
point on which he could not hold himself justified, 
and that was his own silence at the time. Evil had 
come of it, as evil has a fashion of coming of things 
hidden which should be revealed. But he had been 
young — a boy, and unstrung and bewildered by that 
awful catastrophe. He had needed to hold still and 
nerve himself. Then had come news of the burn- 
ing of the cabin, and that had seemed to wipe out 
all evidence, to obviate all necessity for speech. 
Ranke had been alone in the world and unpopular. 
Who would inquire avidly into the arcana of his 


taking off ? Who cared specially whether he were 
alive or dead ? Nobody — or it had seemed so. 

Deane had always had his own theory to account 
for that fire, which had come so opportunely as to 
simulate a god-send. He remembered well the 
stack of fat lightwood Ranke had always kept be- 
side the hearth, piled up against the log wall, handy 
for kindling. As they fought, much of it had been 
scattered about, on the floor among the cards and 
money, and on the rocks of the hearth. There had 
been a great fire burning, and he had left it so, with- 
out a thought. As the logs burned through and 
settled, what more probable than that a blazing 
chunk had rolled out, ignited some of the resinous 
stuff and so fired the cabin ? This seemed the natu- 
ral, rational explanation, and ho had always held to 
it. He held to it still. 

Neither the killing nor the fire troubled him 
then. What did was his own silence, which, since 
evil had come of it, he denounced as stupidity and 
cowardice. If, ten years ago, he had owned to his 
deed and stood by to take the consequences like a 
man, instead of coming off like a dumb fool sheep, 
he told himself, furiously, another man would not 
now be imperiled by it. Another man, innocent in 
intention and deed, would not have been robbed of 
character, scorned, pointed at, plucked from his 
family and cast into prison to answer for the work 
of his — Deane’s — hands. It was maddening to think 
of, and Deane stamped about his room, clenched his 
fist, and longed savagely to kick himself for that 
past silence, which had seemed at the time so easy. 


THE UGLINESS OF SILENCE. 


IJ 5 

Do deeds never die ? Must a man’s actions, even 
a man’s words, stand forever in evidence ? Yea, 
verily! — for life moves in sequence, and the chain 
must pass link by link, without a break, or so much 
as a missing rivet, until the remotest limit of time 
shall be connected with the uttermost possibility of 
eternity. 

If he had told then, Deane knew enough of his 
kind to be reasonably confident that he would have 
gotten off easily. Ranke had been disliked, had 
been feared, and he himself had been popular. But 
now ? He had not trusted his old confreres in the 
first instance, and since then , had removed himself 
from their sphere, had elevated himself to a higher 
level. He was no longer in touch with them — no 
longer one of them. He could not count on their 
support as he once might have done. All this was 
against him. 

Since then also, unconsciously and ignorantly, but 
none the less certainly, he had let another man suf- 
fer in his stead. And this other, a mountaineer 
who was still of his own guild. Jim Trotter was 
not likely to treat leniently that which had cost him 
dear, nor were Jim’s friends. That which pinches 
a man’s own fingers awakens his resentment, and 
doubly so when the pinching is an injustice, and 
should be legally administered to quite other digits. 
Deane remembered his involuntary substitute well. 
It had been at Jim’s house that he had staid the 
night before his ill-omened visit to the “blue-gum.” 
He remembered Jim’s wife also, even down to the 
sprigged calico gown she had worn, and Jim’s chil- 


ii 6 




dren. There had been a blue-eyed damsel among 
them whom he had esteemed pretty, and an inconse- 
quent bullet-headed baby that had the colic and 
howled lustily between goes of catnip tea. He re- 
called even the look of the guns in the hooks over 
the door, and the banjo with which they had made 
merry after the homely supper and clearing up. 
From Trotter’s hospitality he had gone straight to 
the doing of a deed which was to bring disgrace 
and misfortune on his host and all his belongings. 
The man was close-fisted, narrow, and illiterate; he 
was held to love money unduly and to hanker after 
its possession; but he was good to his own, lazily 
loyal to those whom he liked and, in a way, neigh- 
borly to poorer people. He was, moreover, inno- 
cent of the deed of which he jvas accused. All this 
too was against Deane. He felt it so. 

He paced the room restlessly, pondering the situ- 
ation. A badgered feeling came over him, as though 
for a small offense he were threatened with large 
chastisement. From his unsatisfactory grave, the 
“blue-gum" appeared to mock at him, mouthing 
derisively and laying his fingers to his nose as he 
had done once before. The luck of the game 
seemed to have turned to Ranke again, while he 
held only losing cards. What business had Ranke’s 
ghost to walk ? — scaring the inoffensive mountain- 
eers and galvanizing them into preternatural alert- 
ness. of suspicion and action. Underneath the cul- 
ture of Deane’s nature lay the old strata of super- 
stition, inherited and ineradicable. The beliefs in 
which he had been reared were the beliefs which 


THE UGLINESS OF SILENCE. 


117 

stuck by him in emergency. Instead of explaining 
away phenomena with later-day reason, he resented 
it with pristine passion. This posthumous inter- 
meddling in human affairs seemed to him an un- 
warrantable exhibition of spiritual officiousness. 
After all, what harm had he done Ranke more than 
Ranke had shown himself ready and anxious to do 
him ? 

And his life since! Had it not been upward every 
step of the way ? His thought glanced over the 
record of the past ten years and showed that it was 
good. Much had been achieved, and more was in 
process of achievement. He was but thirty years 
old, and his best working days were before him ; the 
days in which brain and hand would grow into their 
fullest power, their finest development. His future 
appeared to stretch away full of promise of useful- 
ness, of honor and of happiness. 

His eyes rested on his model, and he drew nearer 
the table, bending over it and moving the light so 
that it might reveal the delicate simplicity of the 
mechanism, the wonderful orderliness of the move- 
ment. When it should be perfected, as he only 
could perfect it, that tiny model, which he might 
have cabined in the crown of his hat, would mean 
much to him, and more to the race of men. 

Then he thought of Joyce Ruthven. How fair 
she was! — how faithful and loving! He loved her, 
and he dared now to hope that he might win her 
love in return for his own. The look of her eyes 
when he had told them with his that day in the 
church came back to him, full of recognition, sug- 


n8 — f — 

gesting promise. Joyce might love him in time. 
This too the future held. 

But this other thing. What must he do about it ? 
A thought came and he flinched and started as 
though hot iron were laid against his flesh. Then 
temptation arose and warred against the thought, 
even as Balak, son of Zippor, warred against Israel. 

The man shook and trembled, swayed this way 
and that, and when he sought peace upon his bed it 
was not there. 


DEANE VERSUS THE DEVIL. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

DEANE VERSUS THE DEVIL. 

No rest -had he that night, nor the next morning, 
for the devil abode with him and labored with dili- 
gence, making suggestions the most subtle, and 
arraying himself in the garments of an angel of 
light. 

He went early to the stable, yearning for the 
touch and companionship of a loving, uncritical 
friend. The red mare whinnied as usual at his ap- 
proach, and fondled him with her Jiead, looking love 
into his eyes; but she brought him no comfort. He 
leaned against her shoulder, with his arm over her 
neck, and watched her stirring daintily, with sensi- 
tive lip, among the golden oats. He loved her, and 
she had cost him dear, but now in his extremity the 
old horse could not fill the measure of his needs. 
He did the things that were needful for her com- 
fort, and then went away from her, closing the 
door. 

After- breakfast the three mountaineers departed, 
unwitting of the havoc they had wrought, and very 
much pleased with their visit, which they volun- 
teered to repeat at some future day. They were 
profuse in their own proffers of hospitality likewise, 
in case he should “ take er notion” to come back to 


120 




the hills for a fish or a hunt. Deer and trout still 
abounded in the old haunts, they told him, and his 
welcome stood waiting. 

Rutherford saw them depart and then went down 
to his office, but peace was not there — nor decision. 
Nothing was there save the devil, who discoursed 
craftily and at length. 

Why should he tell on himself after all these 
years? No one suspected him; there was no evi- 
dence of any sort to connect him with the deed. 
None would know. None would even imagine that 
his had been the hand which had opened the gates 
of eternity for the' “ blue-gum. ” He had only to 
continue the embargo of silence already laid on his 
lips and, for him, all would be well. He could go 
on with his life, growing in usefulness, in honor. 
What was Ranke’s life worth to humanity, or Jim 
Trotter’s either, in comparison with a life such 
as he could make his? Could Jim invent for the 
benefit of the race? Or Ranke construct? The 
“ blue-gum ” had been nothing to humanity save an 
incarnate menace. And how much more was this 
illiterate mountaineer ? 

Then he remembered that Jim’s wife and family, 
even numerically, should be admitted to some share 
in human representation; and that to a dozen or 
more of the species Trotter stood for a good deal. 

Well, was Trotter’s life in any danger? Surely 
not. He was innocent of the crime and could 
doubtless set up an adequate defense. The whole 
suspicion, as far as he could gather, was grounded 
on the cantankerous accusations of a miserable 


DEANE VERSUS THE DEVIL. 


I 2 I 


shrew who was not entitled to credence on oath, 
much less off it. There was the fact of money 
having fallen in to Trotter just about the time of 
Ranke’s death; but that must be mere coinci- 
dence. 

Trotter had only to show where the money came 
from in order to squelch any ugly significance which 
might be attached to it. For the disgrace ? — what 
disgrace could come to a man from an unjust charge, 
after it had been disproven ? And for the loss and 
annoyance accruing from the suspicion and arrest 
he would himself, in some indirect way, reimburse 
him. He would present that bit of land — his patri- 
monial estate, which he still owned among the 
hills — to some one or other of Trotter’s progeny, 
and that would square matters. Trotter loved 
money above all things. 

Having arranged this, it came over him that the 
local bar was accounted eminently shrewd, and that 
had the case been in truth so simple it would have 
been dismissed from the lower court. The men had 
told him that Jim Trotter had been regularly in- 
dicted, and was held for trial. By some ignorant 
misrepresentation, some chicanery of rustic preju- 
dice, some misapprehension of facts, that which 
was not might be established. The Watts woman 
was malignant and obstinate. She had committed 
herself, and if she had lied out of whole cloth would 
probably stick to it. The jury would doubtless be 
impanelled of men of the district, ignorant fellows, 
intolerant and opinionated. He knew the sort well. 
Their sole idea of sustaining the personal import- 


122 


- ? — 


ance conferred upon them by transient authority 
was by the exercise of ruthless severity. 

He — Rutherford — was ignorant of details. Sup- 
pose the case against Trotter should really appear 
strong. Suppose that money should in verity have 
been attained by unlawful means. Suppose Jim 
could not account for it satisfactorily, since coining 
and illicit distilling were neither unknown to the 
laurel-brakes. Suppose the North Carolina aunt 
had never existed, save by Jim’s necessity, or, grant- 
ing her existence, suppose she were not dead, or 
being dead had left nothing behind her. Would a 
rustic jury make nice distinctions? Not they. If 
lies and bad character could be established they 
would promptly punish for murder, and the more 
because it had been to Jim Trotter that the “blue- 
gum’s ” “ha’rnf'had first manifested itself. The 
accused might be a scamp, or he might not. That 
as far as Deane was concerned was aside from the 
case. But he knew that ill fame interplaying with 
besotted prejudice and circumstantial evidence had 
hanged men before now for crimes which they 
never committed. 

The battle raged with varying fortunes. Deane 
tramped his office floor, in the pauses of business, as 
he had tramped that of his chamber the previous 
night. As he turned near one of the windows he 
caught a glimpse of Dr. Craige Hatton riding by. 
And over the top of a distant building he could see 
the spire of the village church He swore aloud. 

If he should give himself up — if he should ride 
forth to Tuckahoe Court House and surrender him- 


DEANE VERSUS THE DEVIL. 


12 3 


self to be jailed in Jim Trotter’s place, if, in fullness 
of time he should stand up in open court and be 
tried for his life on a sentence of murder — or, at 
lightest, of man-slaughter — what would happen? 
Why he would be a marked man for the balance of 
his days, and must give up all hope of Joyce Ruth- 
ven. He knew the pride of the family and he knew 
that, even at best, he would not be welcomed into it 
without, at least, covert, wry faces by many members 
of it. This other thing would bar him out as com- 
pletely as though he belonged to a different species. 
Or so it seemed to him. Marry Joyce! Why he 
would not be permitted to touch so much as the hem 
of her garment unreproved. It would be between 
them as though a sirocco had passed, blasting every 
bud and leaflet even of friendship. 

And she would forget him. After the first indig- 
nation, or the first pitifulness, as the case might be, 
had passed away, she would put him aside and 
marry that smug-faced, sanctified old priest, with 
his houseful of children and his maddening, unim- 
peachable respectability. Or worse still, she would 
give herself to that infernal young doctor, who even 
now might be cantering out to Manitoba to make 
himself efficient and useful to the child Joyce loved, 
and acceptable to her with purring professional con- 
fidence and abominably good-looking face. 

And he — a better man than either, or so in his 
temper he assumed — had to stand aside and give up 
all, worldly honor, advancement, hope and love, be- 
cause, forsooth, ten years ago he had resisted being 
bitten by a poisonous “blue-gum.” 


124 


— f — 


“ It was hard,” he told himself savagely; “it was 
damnably hard, and no question about it.” 

Then his conscience being a healthily active one, 
informed him that it was not because of Ranke’s 
death, but of Jim Trotter's life that it behooved him 
to speak out and shoulder the responsibility of his 
own act. 

He groaned aloud. 

The whistle of a railway train came to him from 
a distance and touched his chaotic thought as with 
a hand of guidance. He looked at his watch hur- 
riedly. There was time still to catch the up-train for 
Montaubon. He gave the necessary directions to 
his foreman and made his way over to the station, 
springing on the platform of the rear car as the 
train was moving out. 

Arrived at the Iron- Works he went straight to Mr. 
Voss’s office and was fortunate in finding that gentle- 
man in and alone. Deane told his story without 
halt or circumlocution, setting forth the grim 
facts in their nakedness. From start to finish Mr. 
Voss hearkened carefully, only interrupting him 
from time to time with pertinent queries and deduc- 
tions. When Deane made an end of speaking the 
older man remained silent for a space, going over it 
all in his own mind. It seemed to him a terrible 
waste somehow — a terrible pity. 

Suddenly he leaned forward across the desk be- 
tween them and looked into Deane’s eyes, speechless 
still, but with his thought as plainly legible in his 
face as though it were matter printed on an open 
page. 


DEANE VERSUS THE DEVIL. 


125 


Deane shrank away and threw out his hands. 
His own temptation reflected in another man’s face 
showed itself to him in all its hideous nudity, in all 
its unclean, revolting meanness. He spoke through 
white lips, dropping unconsciously into the homely 
phraseology of the past. 

“ For risin’ twenty-four hours,” he said, “ the 
devil hev been diggin’ an’ diggin’ till he’s scooped 
out a ditch in my road I can’t hardly make aim to 
jump over. Don’t help him. For ten years I’ve 
followed your word faithful, an’ it has plumbed me 
a straight track, to move on man-fashion. Don’t 
double back, sir! I couldn’t stand it! Don’t send 
me crooked after all these years!” 

A swift flush mounted to the older man’s fore- 
head, and sudden moisture to his eyes. He laid his 
hand on Deane’s and clasped it close. 

“ You’re right, lad,” he said huskily. “ And I beg 
your pardon. There’s a miry bit of road ahead, but 
drive straight, and I’ll stand by you and see you 
through.” 


126 




CHAPTER XIV. 

THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY. 

The country road system in the South, to the un- 
initiated, is as a thing inexplicable and utterly 
devoid of purpose. The county-roads, kept in at 
least passable condition by ceaseless official hound- 
ing, meander through the length and breadth of the 
land understandably enough. Their business is to 
link court-house to court-house, and they do it, 
holding them like fat beads set at intervals on a 
brown string. But apart from these there is an 
afflicting sub-system of mill-roads, ford-roads, wood- 
roads and plantation by-paths which have apparent- 
ly no reason for being save that somebody, some- 
time, took a notion to ride or drive over a particular 
hill or through a special hollow, and that somebody 
else, attracted by the print of hoof or wheel, followed 
the track to see where the first fellow had come out, 
and so on ad infinitum until inalienable right of way 
was established. 

But many of these pre-empted thoroughfares 
have really more method in their meandering than 
prima facie evidence would go to support. Instead 
of leading from nowhere to nothing, with a call 
around at everybody’s house on the way, they have 
for genesis some lonely grist-mill set back in a hoi- 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY. 127 

low, and for exodus the village which holds the 
court-house. 

Along one of the most serpentine and unsatisfac- 
tory of these roads Deane Rutherford made his way 
mounted on his red mare, who despite her years had 
no infirmities, and could get over ground in a style 
most praiseworthy. Beside him rode Mr. Voss, 
holding himself slack in the saddle, as though he 
were tired or unaccustomed to horseback exercise. 

“ Are you sure you’ve got the right road, Deane ?” 
he queried, for the seventh time since their de- 
parture from the court-house village. “ This way 
looks devilish lonesome and shut-in. I don’t believe 
anybody lives here-away that can help themselves. 
We’ve come about ten miles already and haven’t 
met a human creature except two nigger mill-boys, 
one with a head-turn and t’other, on muleback. It’s 
my belief you’ve branched out wrong somewhere.” 

Deane laughed. 

“ I haven’t branched out anywhere,” he declared. 
“ I’ve come straight. And you’re mistaken about 
the ten miles, Mr. Voss. It’s only seven from the 
court-house to Lawyer Meredith’s place, as the 
crow flies.” 

“ It’s seventeen as the road runs,” grumbled Voss. 
“ This infernal track doubles and twists like a pump- 
kin vine. Dark will overtake us before we get 
where we’re going at this rate.” 

“Oh, no!” reassured Deane, cheerfully. “We’ll 
be there shortly.” 

“ How do you know ? Ever been there before 
yourself ?” 


128 




“Yes. But we didn’t come this way. We cut 
into the road farther along from another direction.” 

“Your previous trips aren’t likely to advantage us 
then,” Mr. Voss remarked, dryly, then added for 
the sake of keeping up the conversation: “ What 
did you come down to Meredith’s for ?” 

Deane jumped the red mare over the trunk of a 
prostrate tree blown down across the road before he 
answered. 

“ My father had a oontract to furnish Meredith 
with a lot of shingles once,” he explained. “ And 
we agreed to deliver them on the place. He did 
most of the hauling himself and I staid in camp and 
helped to rive and draw, but sometimes he’d send 
me down with the team. I came alone the first time 
and nosed out the way well enough. It’s hard to 
lose a woodsman in timber. We’re going right 
now.” 

Having his doubts, Mr. Voss let that point pass 
and settled himself to take that which might come 
to him. The way led now through a burnt piney 
woods, inexpressibly mournful and desolate. The 
previous autumn a fire, set alight by a man twenty 
miles away who undertook to burn off new ground 
for a potato patch in a high wind, had swept through 
the region thereabouts, well-nigh destroying the for- 
ests. Even where the tall trees showed green 
crests,- the bark of their trunks was seared and 
blackened, and the undergrowth was calcined and 
brittle, all vitality scorched out of it. The bare 
earth showed no brown covering of leaves, only 
sodden ashes and banks of dead coals where trees 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY. 129 

and bushes had been charred through. Only the 
ground plants had escaped, and rats-bane, wood 
ferns and trailing arbutus strove to cover up some 
of the nakedness of the land with striped and glossy 
foliage, clusters of fragrant waxy blossoms and deli- 
cate feathery fronds. The hush after tumult ap- 
peared to hold the place, and the beat of the horses’ 
tread pulsed the silence in rhythmic unison. Away 
in the distance the cry of a corn-crake rose into 
prominence, and from closer at hand the mournful 
note of a wood dove came like a reminder of pain. 
Other movement or sound there was none. 

“ What sort of man was your father, Deane ?” Mr. 
Voss questioned suddenly. “ Was he popular among 
the neighbors ?” 

Rutherford paused before replying, evidently 
trying to lay hold of the matter impartially. He 
knew well enough that Mr. Vbss was arranging 
points in his mind for proper presentation to the 
lawyer, and that he considered the chance of heredi- 
tary popularity worth looking into. As a son Deane 
had been fond of his father; but he was trying now 
to regard him from the citizen stand-point. 

“ He was a Democrat — a Jackson Democrat, and 
always had been,” he made answer. “ And he fought 
well during the war. He was with Jeb Stuart up to 
Yellow Tavern, and afterward he guerrilled a bit 
under Mosby. He fought well, folks say, and was 
trusted by his officers. All that was before my time 
of course. It was before he married my mother. 
He was a high-tempered man, father was, as I re- 
member him, quick with his tongue and quick with 


130 




his fists; but he wasn’t malicious, like some, and he 
never took more advantage than was due him. I’ve 
seen him all but knock a man down for trying to 
cheat him in a trade, and then abate from the price 
of a steer out of his own head if the beast happened 
to be low in order. I reckon he was a good bit the 
sort of man I’d have been myself if I’d staid in the 
woods.” 

The listener thought that probable. 

After a moment of silence Deane recommenced 
in a reminiscent tone. 

“ I’ll tell you what was popular among the folk, 
and that was father’s old fiddle. Father’s reputa- 
tion as a fiddler was enough wider spread than his 
reputation as a man or a soldier. There wasn’t any- 
body could touch him at the bow anywhere around 
in this region. Folks sent for him from 'way over 
in North Carolina and Tennessee to play for ’em at 
merry-makings. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t 
do with that fiddle — it was a sort of gift of God 
with him, for he never had much teaching. At a 
shucking-match, or a junket when he’d take the 
‘ old lady,’ as he called her, out of the bag and lay 
her against his cheek and half-shut his eyes and bow 
the strings in a rollicking tune, the very hounds 
outside would look like they wanted to get on their 
hind legs and lead off up the middle and down 
again. And all the religion that ever was gotten 
couldn’t keep the elders’ feet from patting.” 

Deane stopped to look about him and turn into a 
side road. 

“Yes, sir!” he pursued, in a moment. “Father 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY . 13 x 

was a wonder with the fiddle. And the ‘ old lady ’ 
was a wonder herself. She could laugh and sing, 
trilling out chords as sweet as a mocking-bird’s 
when he sits on the fence in the dawning, with the 
sun coming up red in the east, and the dew flashing 
and quivering on everything like rubies and dia- 
monds; she could rollick like a school-boy out after 
chestnuts; she could chatter and scold like an angry 
parrot or a woman; she could whisper and sigh like 
the winds in the pines at midnight; she could leap 
and bubble and gurgle like water over rocks, and 
she could wail out with long, thin shivering notes 
like those you hear in the night sometimes in an old 
country house when there’s a restless gale astir. I 
used to think that fiddle was bewitched when I was 
a kid.” 

Mr. Voss listened casually. None of this, to him, 
appeared likely to influence a jury. 

As for Deane, he went on with his reminiscences 
at a canter. 

“ The neighbors used to tell a lot of tales on 
father about the old fiddle. They said that the 
reason why he always backed down at revivals and 
shunned getting religion was because Parson Spang- 
ler wouldn’t let his fiddle come through along with 
him. Parson was a Hard-shell, of the hell-fire and 
brimstone believing sort, with no more appreciation 
of music, outside of a psalm tune, than a hog has of 
astronomy. He had never heard father play a note 
in his life, and he didn’t want to either. Bowing 
and fingering and all the rest of it were as unintel- 
ligible as Choctaw to him. He knew about sack- 


132 


buts and psalterys and harps with solemn sound, be- 
cause he had read about ’em in the Bible — that is, 
he knew how the words looked. He talked about 
’em knowingly and promised father his choice of 
’em to play on in the better world, if he’d only give 
up the fiddle in this, and let himself be saved. But 
father wouldn’t. He allowed he might live to be 
ninety years old — men did sometimes among the 
mountains — and as he was only thirty-five then, it 
would give him upwards of fifty years of dumb 
lonesomeness to worry through before he could lay 
bow to string again. His hand would get out for 
want of practice, and when an unfamiliar instru- 
ment was handed him, he’d make no showing before 
the Throne worth noticing. The angels would 
laugh at him maybe and make him ashamed. Then 
too the more he compared the unknown heavenly 
instruments with his dear, old, familiar earthly fid- 
dle the less he felt inclined to swop. 

“ Father had a healthy respect for the devil. He 
had been raised with it. And the thought of fire 
and brimstone, as elucidated by the preacher, was 
not agreeable. Mother wanted him to join the 
church too, and that influenced him. He hankered 
after salvation and he hankered after his fiddle. He 
offered Parson a compromise. If he’d agree to play 
psalm tunes, ride and tie, with worldly tunes, every 
time he sat down to his fiddle, would Parson let him 
get religion same as other folks ? No, sirree! not 
much, Parson wouldn’t. There wasn t to his know- 
ledge a fiddle mentioned in the Good Book, from 
cover to cover, and he wasn’t the man to inaugurate 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY . 133 

innovations. A fiddle was the devil’s delight, that’s 
what it was, and holy tunes would be desecrated by 
being rendered upon it. 

“ That r’iled father, and he determined to get even 
with the preacher. As to there being no violins in 
heaven he didn’t believe a word of it. He knew 
by himself how love of the instrument can curl in 
with a man’s heart-strings, and it went against him 
to think that all the fellows who had made violins 
and played ’em were in hell. The readiest way 
would have been to. show Parson how sweetly the 
i old lady ’ could sing a psalm tune, but Parson 
wouldn’t listen. When father proposed it, and even 
when mother backed him up, for she loved the violin 
and saw no harm in it in spite of being a church 
member, you’d have thought they’d invited him to 
hearken to the devil beating on a skull with cross- 
bones. Father wasn’t to be outdone, though. He 
was bound to get justice for the * old lady ’ some- 
how. 

“ He laid low, and kept dark until the next big 
revival time over at the log meeting house, and just 
before folks went into camp and the thing got 
swinging, took himself off, with his fiddle, down to 
Tuckahoe Court-House. The lawyers liked his 
music, and when he was in town during session of 
court, and known to have his fiddle along, they’d 
always have him up to play for them. I’ve seen a 
whole gang standing around him on the green, and 
Lawyer Meredith in the very forefront of ’em, 
knocking time with his walking-stick against the 
ground. This time my father sent word back home 


that he’d got caught on a jury, and that the lawyers 
were going to have a dance at the tavern after 
court had adjourned and wanted him to play for 
them, so the Lord alone knew when he’d get home. 

“ The meeting went joyfully along without him, 
however. I was a right sharp chap at the time, 
and our house wasn't but a mile from the meeting- 
place, so that I put in pretty much all my leisure at 
the camp. Sinners were mighty rank among the 
hills that fall, and Parson Spangler got in another 
man to help him and fairly rolled up his sleeves and 
went for them. He preached so much about hell- 
fire that it was a wonder that he didn’t burn his own 
tongue, and so much resin and brimstone flew about 
that an unconverted man was almost afraid to light 
his pipe lest he should occasion an accident. The 
sinners went down like cradled wheat and were 
gathered up in bundles and stacked on the mourn- 
ers’ bench. 

“ The afternoon of the third day is about the 
time when the wave of excitement crests generally; 
after that the congregation gets tired and flattens 
out. Four or five stout sinners had come through 
on a trot that afternoon and Parson was feeling 
proud of himself. While the elect were shaking 
hands with the newly-saved, he mopped the dews of 
eloquence from his brow, and after they got through 
he called out, ‘ Brethren, we will now praise the 
Lord by singing that beautiful hymn, “ The Old 
Ship of Zion.” ’ 

“ Somebody lifted the tune, and the balance, men 
and women, tumbled up to it the best way they 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY. 135 

knew how. They made a swing and rush of sound 
that filled the place and broke out at the windows, 
so to speak, but, about the third line, it settled down 
and steadied. Then everybody noticed all at once 
that something had slipped into the music that be- 
longed to it, and yet was lifted above it, as the soul 
is in and yet above the body. It seemed the voice 
of a woman, it seemed the voice of an angel, and it 
took the tune from the mouths of the people and 
carried it up and up in soft eddying flights, full and 
sweet as the song of the nightingale, thrilling and 
clear as the notes of our own forest minstrel. All 
the rough prayers, all the earnest, halting worship 
of the place appeared to have sublimated and em- 
bodied itself in sound and to be soaring away from 
our hearts straight into the infinite, carrying our 
messages to God. 

“The people hushed gradually, one by one, and 
stared about ’em, a trifle awed at first and wonder- 
ing. Where did the music come from ? It was 
above them, hovering in the air as it were; its soft 
final diminuendo seemed to settle down upon them 
like a blessing. Parson just folded his hands to- 
gether and lifted ’em, and said — sort of solemn: 
‘ Brethren, this sacrifice is acceptable unto the Lord 
our God, and he has vouchsafed unto us a sign out 
of heaven. Yea, even a sound, as of angels harp- 
ing upon harps before the throne of the Almighty.’ 

“ The elders were mightily affected too, but some 
of ’em looked dubious and held back from seconding 
the motion for a special prayer of thanksgiving. 
They had better trained ears than the preacher and, 




136 

after the first surprise, it sort of came to ’em what 
might be the true inwardness of the heavenly 
voice.” 

“Did they find out?” questioned Mr. Voss, with 
a chuckle. 

“They did that!” Deane admitted gleefully. 
“ Down by the door there was a hole in the ceiling 
that led up into a loft. One of the fellows grabbed 
hold of little Nat Clarke, a shaver about my size, 
and hoisted him up there. Nat disappeared like a 
rat through a barn floor, but in a minute he popped 
his head back, grinning like a ’possum, and yelled 
out, ‘ Tell Pas’sen to hold up prayin’, fellows. ’Tain’t 
nary angel no more’n nothin’! It’s jes’ Sam Ruther- 
ford squattin’ up here on a passel o’ pine-tags foolin’ 
we-a-11 good with his blessed ole fiddle !’ ” 

Deane laughed out with reminiscent relish as he 
brought the paternal escapade up to this climax. 
The scandalized countenance of the befooled 
preacher came back to him. Mr. Voss laughed 
also, as much at Deane’s amusement as at the story. 
The fellow was so boyish still despitd his years and 
his inches. 

“ Your father got some pretty heavy ecclesiastical 
scourging, I reckon,” he commented. “ He deserved 
it.” 

“ No, he didn’t!” chuckled Deane. “ Parson looked 
so funny and snapped-off, standing there with his 
mouth gaping like a cat-fish, that some of the girls 
and boys got to giggling, and that touched off the 
balance. Some of the deacons laughed till they 
cried, and one of ’em swore that if hymning was 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY. 137 

any sign, Rutherford’s old fiddle was as good a 
Christian as any of ’em. The trick in-about broke 
up the meeting though. The converts couldn’t half 
attend to gripping salvation for cocking their ears 
upward for a voice from heaven. Father made 
Parson the handsomest sort of apology, and ex- 
plained that he was only after proving that his ‘ old 
lady ’ wasn’t given over to the devil and his works, 
like Parson said. He wouldn’t have done it in 
church anyhow if Parson would have listened out- 
side.” 

After a final elbow the road left the woods to 
wind through a broomsedge field, galled and gullied 
in places, showing red cuts like gory lacerations, 
and studded about with scrub pine and sassafras. It 
was used as a sheep pasture, being fit for nothing 
else, and quite a flock of the pretty harmless crea- 
tures started from the roadside at the approach of 
the horsemen, and sheltered in the chaparral. A 
blowsy colt, evidently bored by seclusion amid un- 
congenial company, greeted them with whinnies of 
delight and joined the procession with sincere up- 
lifting of his heels to heaven. He accompanied 
them to a gate on the farther side of the field with 
many cordial demonstrations, and could only be dis- 
couraged from further attendance by having the 
gate rudely slammed in his face. 

A good meadow, wherein grazed horses and cattle, 
now bordered the road, which circled graciously to 
an eminence, where an old-fashioned two story 
frame house with a quaintly gabled roof adorned 
with flattish, slanting dormer-windows, was well set 


amid a grove of forest trees. The building was 
painted a pretty dead-leaf color, all except the bit 
of wall framed by the front porch, which by some 
vagary of taste had been left a dingy white, and 
showed odd and incongruous, like a light patch on 
a dark garment. In front, a beautiful yard, softly 
verdant with the natural greensward of the region, 
sloped down to the level where the road was, and 
the big entrance gate. Beyond the dwelling, and 
somewhat removed from it, were the domestic 
offices, and beyond again a fine garden. 

“ The first time I ever saw that house,” Deane ob- 
served as they rode up to the front gate, “ it looked 
like a blaze-faced horse to me.. The two gable 
peaks set up like ears, and there used to be a Vir- 
ginia creeper that tumbled over between them from 
somewhere behind and made a first-rate forelock.” 

“ It does look like it,” assented Mr. Voss, dismount- 
ing. 

“ I haven’t been here since the war. The place 
isn’t changed much. I used to visit here-away a 
good deal in my buckish days.” 

“ Folks say that Lawyer Meredith was engaged to 
be married once,” hazarded Deane, “and that he 
was fixing up and getting ready — re-painting his 
house and all that — when word came that the young 
lady was ill unto death. They say he stopped every- 
thing, right there, when the painters had done all 
but that scrap of wall inside the porch, and that 
after her death he wouldn’t have anything finished. 
I wonder if it’s a true tale.” 

Mr. Voss nodded. He and Travers Meredith had 


THINGS LIKELY TO INFLUENCE A JURY. i 39 

been classmates at the University of Virginia; and 
associates thereafter through many pleasant days 
and years. All of the other man’s external history 
was known to him. He did not think it worth 
while to inform Deane that the dead girl, so nearly 
a bride, was none other than the “ sweetheart ” to 
whom he himself had alluded some months previ- 
ously. It is touch and go with old stories, and this 
one seemed to move up nearer to him, out here in 
the woods, than it had done before in years. Per- 
haps because of the proximity of the man who had 
not forgotten. 


140 


CHAPTER XV. 

LAWYER MEREDITH. 

A gentleman, who had witnessed their approach 
from his library window, stepped out on the porch 
to give them greeting. He was accompanied by a 
miniature black and tan rat-terrier, who rose to the 
occasion by planting himself on the top step, deny- 
ing them entrance and seeking to intimidate them 
by a succession of yapping barks which sounded as 
if they might have been squeezed out of him by 
pressure. This furious beast Deane Rutherford 
promptly caught up in his hand and set upon his 
coat sleeve with a cheery “halloo, dogalums,” which 
the guardian of the place found disconcerting. 

“Lawyer” Meredith, so called by the country- 
side, as though he singly represented the jurispru- 
dence of the district, met his guests with hospitable 
welcome. He ushered them into his own legal 
sanctum, and made them comfortable in leather 
arm-chairs which had the ponderosity, the color and 
the odor of law-books. He was a tall man and 
spare, with a decided slouch in his shoulders, one of 
which he held stiffly, and frequently rubbed and 
manipulated with his hand. In his fighting days a 
fragment of one of the enemy’s shells had torn it 
pretty well to pieces, and now that years were 


LAWYER MEREDITH. 


141 

doubling up on him it gave vantage ground for the 
deposit of rheumatic poison. His face was smooth 
shaven, save for small mutton-chop whiskers which 
joined his iron-gray hair at the temples. His feat- 
ures were harsh, the chin very square and uncom- 
promising, and the mouth a trifle hard, but the eyes 
were fine, a clear, warm brown, that could lighten 
and flash with energy and excitement, or melt and 
glow with tenderness. 

His voice was toned curiously and, at first hear- 
ing, was apt to jar on the ear, to seem somehow 
reedy and inadequate. But let the man fire to pur- 
pose, or warm to effort; put him on a speaker’s 
stand with the populace in front eager for his words, 
or at the bar of a crowded court-house with a knotty 
and interesting case in hand, and a foeman worthy 
of his steel in the opposition, and it would be speedi- 
ly discovered that nature makes no blunders. No 
other vocal organ could so aptly have served “ the 
man behind the voice;” no other tones could have 
lent themselves so absolutely to the rendition of his 
subtleties of mood. In sarcasm or invective its caus- 
tic bitterness carried words to their point like a dash 
of vitriol; in argument or exhortation it winged 
them like darts, swift and straight to the target, and 
in appeal it could so intensify pathos, so play upon 
emotion that it was a common saying at the local 
bar that “Trave Meredith as good as carried his 
jury in his breeches pocket.” 

Had the times of Henry and Clay been his, Mere- 
dith might have achieved a reputation equal to 
theirs, having truly as they had the gift of mag- 


142 


— f — 


netic oratory. But at the very outset of his forensic 
career, when his scarcely won spurs still glittered at 
his heels, there had come into his life a sorrow of 
the sort to which men of his emotional tempera- 
ment oftentimes prove as blasting as siroccos. He 
had loved a woman, not only with his heart, but 
with every fiber of his being, mental and spiritual. 
With his love, Meredith had bound up his ambitions, 
his hopes for professional advancement, and his as- 
pirations of every sort, and when death robbed 
him of love it seemed to pull the linchpin, so to 
speak, out of everything. The man went all to 
pieces for a time, and could only move as one dis- 
abled. 

The Civil War, which broke out in his thirtieth 
year, helped him to brace up to manhood again, by 
dint of enforced exertion, and of the various strong 
emotions then called into play. He served well and 
honorably, but ended, like his betters, with a dis- 
located life, a depleted exchequer, a clear conscience 
and a skinful of aching bones. The struggle for 
existence filled the years of reconstruction so full 
that there was scant room for other ambitions than 
those involved in the meat, drink and clothing 
problems, and when, at length, Meredith got his 
head sufficiently above water again to look about 
upon the world and the wonders thereof he found 
that his day was past. In the great centers life had 
changed, in law-courts as elsewhere . Men had no 
longer time, or inclination, to listen to elaborate 
arguments and speeches, be they never so eloquent. 
Hurried sons stood in the place of leisurely fathers; 


LAWYER MEREDITH. 


143 


other methods prevailed, and conciseness and expe- 
dition were the watchwords. Even in Virginia the 
day of forensic law had waned, and the day of 
“ office-law ” was dawning. 

Only in the rural districts, where life was still 
unfevered, something of the old appetite for talk 
lingered, and men could hearken to a speech with 
periods, and discuss it relishingly afterwards. So 
Meredith, knowing his own gifts, and clever enough 
to be cognizant likewise of his limitations, accepted 
himself as a survival, and settled down to a country 
practice which, apart from a comfortable mainte- 
nance, could give him nothing save local celebrity. 
This, however, he had in full measure, being a sort 
of special fetich in the courts where he practiced, a 
power before a circuit judge, and the dictator of a 
rustic jury. 

With politics he had little to do, save when some 
State or county issue pressed, and when well-inten- 
tioned friends sought to inveigle him into larger 
political affairs he would turn them aside with a jest 
or an epigram. When hard pushed, however, he 
did not scruple to declare roundly that statescraft lay 
dead beside eloquence, and that for trader politics 
he had no aptitude and less inclination. 

For a number of years Lawyer Meredith had 
eschewed the lower branch of the practice, confining 
himself almost exclusively to civil law, and only 
consenting to take a criminal case occasionally, 
when the facts interested him by seeming to de- 
velop points that were unusual. Jim Trotter’s 
case, as presented by himself, did not stir the great 


144 


man’s interest, so that he saw no reason to depart 
from his accustomed rule and passed Jim on to 
another man who was working up a reputation in 
the criminal courts. The commonality had almost 
a superstitious feeling in regard to Meredith when 
the law was in question, and the general feeling 
when Jim failed to secure his services was that the 
“ tight place was liable to git a durned sight tighter 
afore it slacked ” for the mountaineer. 

This feeling Deane Rutherford shared to the 
uttermost. He had inquired of the blacksmith at 
once who was Trotter s counsel, feeling even at the 
outset that the matter might be one of vital moment 
to himself, and when a name was given him which 
conveyed no special significance to his mind he felt 
his spirits touch zero. He took it for granted that 
as the case was already docketed the counsel must 
stand the same whether the client shifted or not. 
Mr. Voss set aside this notion with vigor. 

“ You must have Meredith,” he declared. “ If any 
man in the State of Virginia can get the right sort 
of verdict for you, he can. Trave Meredith can not 
only see straight himself, but he can make a jury 
look through his eyes. There’s no question about 
it, Deane. You must see him at once.” 

“ But Meredith’s given up criminal practice 
entirely,” Rutherford demurred. “At least that’s 
what Blake and the other fellows told me. This 
man Trotter has may be good for aught I know, 
only I never heard of him before. He’s been work- 
ing up the case. Meredith hasn’t showed in a 
criminal trial for years.” 


LAWYER MEREDITH. 


r 45 


“ He’ll show in this one,” confidently asserted Mr. 
Voss. “This other fellow can be associated with 
him of course, but Meredith must be in the lead — 
that’s settled. I’ll send him a letter to-night, and 
as soon as the answer comes we’ll ride over to his 
place together and talk about the case. Keep up a 
stout heart, lad. And have horses ready at Winock 
when I wire you. We’ll pull you through this 
among us. Meredith will gladly do me a good turn 
for the sake of ‘ lang syne.’ It will be all right.” 

The lawyer amply justified his old friend’s con- 
fidence in him. He responded to Voss’s letter cor- 
dially and at once, bidding him bring his protege 
over so that the case might be gone into. The 
spring session of court at Tuckahoe Court-House 
would open on the second Monday in April, and 
March was now well under way. It behooved them 
therefore to get things in training, or the case might 
have to lay over until the fall term. A consultation 
had better take place as speedily as possible. On 
this dictum Rutherford and his friends had 
acted. 

When the usual social amenities had been attended 
to, the lawyer turned in his chair, settled himself 
and led up to business. His conversation at first 
had been almost exclusively confined to Mr. Voss. 
Now he turned to Rutherford. 

“You belonged to this region formerly, I under- 
stand, Mr. Rutherford ?” 

Deane promptly admitted that such was the case 
and proceeded to define his social genesis with per- 
spicuity. He had been born and raised on Tucka- 


146 


f 


hoe Mountain, he affirmed, and added that Mr. 
Meredith had known his father well. 

“ Which Rutherford was he ?” the lawyer queried. 
“ There are a good many of the name about.” 

Deane mentioned the paternal patronymic with a 
feeling that it set him apart from the ordinary rank 
and file. Rutherfords there were by the bushel, 
but there was only one Sam Rutherford of musical 
celebrity hereaway. 

A smile flashed at once into Meredith’s eyes. The 
name had, evidently, pleasant associations for him. 

“Sam Rutherford! The fellow who played the 
violin ? Of course I knew him. Every man at the 
Bar knew Sam and his ‘old lady.’ Many’s the time 
I’ve shaken a leg to his music. And so you’re Sam’s 
son, are you ?” 

Deane nodded his head, feeling a distinct thrill 
of pride in the paternal reputation. 

“ I’d a great respect for your father outside of his 
music,” pursued the lawyer. “He was a square 
man and never scrimped in width, or thickness, on 
a contract. The shingles he got for me nearly 
twenty years ago are well-nigh as good as when he 
delivered ’em. There wasn’t a worm-cut, or a rive- 
splintered one in the lot — all sound and up to regu- 
lation. That was Sam. He was an honest man, 
was your father.” 

This was the sort of commendation to appreciate 
at full value; the sort that wears well and does not 
fade with time. A flush of gratification mounted to 
Deane’s brow and he made instant acknowledg- 
ment. 


LAWYER MEREDITH. 


147 


“ Yes, indeed; he was a good lot all around/’ 
Meredith repeated. “ And, Lord! what a wizard he 
was with a violin. It was marvelous! I’ve listened 
to scores of professionals that couldn’t touch him 
anywhere. When Sam would lay that old fiddle of 
his against his cheek, and start his right foot to 
patting there wouldn’t be a still boot on the court- 
house green; and the very oxen would seem to jog 
along the road in time to it. Heaven and earth ap- 
peared to move in harmonious progression when 
Sam drew horse-hair across cat-gut. He was 
mightily missed among us when he joined the 
majority. Some of the fellows declared we ought 
to put the court-house in mourning. Who’s got the 
‘ old lady ’ now ?” 

“ I have,” smiled Deane. “ But I’m not the musi- 
cian my father was, anything like. I play because 
he taught me, and he played because he couldn’t 
help it. There’s a big difference.” 

The lawyer nodded. There was the difference 
between ability and genius. 

There were associations connected with that by- 
gone music which touched him. He felt distinctly 
drawn toward this client of his because of it. 

His professional, as well as his personal interest 
received a fillip when Deane laid his case before 
him. The young man gave the story, as he had 
already given it to Mr. Voss, with concise simplicity. 
Meredith hearkened with his stern face in absolute 
repose and his keen eyes fixed penetratingly, ana- 
lytically upon the narrator. His questions, when 
he put any, were leading ones, and he followed each 


148 




phase of mood in his client with the skilled insight 
of a finely-trained intellect. He wanted information 
other than that contained in external facts, and, as 
far as Deane could furnish it, consciously, or un- 
consciously, it passed into his possession. His brain 
quickened and grew alert, his interest flamed like a 
brush-fire. This case was not as other cases. It 
had emotional possibilities of a high order — and it 
turned upon a superstition. That , to the lawyer, was 
the salient point, and he pressed it, committing him- 
self in no way, but sounding Deane. 

To his satisfaction, rather than surprise, he dis- 
covered that his client’s belief in the poisonous 
quality of the bite of a “ blue-gum ” was as pro- 
nounced and unmistakable now as it had ever been. 
Intellectual advancement and culture had not 
touched it. With Deane this belief was not a 
superstition; it was a simple acceptance of a physi- 
cal fact, to his mind, fully established out of the 
mouths of many witnesses. It was true that he 
himself had never witnessed the malign effects of a 
“blue-gum’s” bite; but other people had and he did 
not count theirs for lying testimony. He — Deane — 
had never contemplated the firmament through the 
Lick telescope, had never, indeed, seen a telescope 
of size at all, but he did not therefore discredit the 
statements of astronomers. Besides the look on 
Ranke’s face, when he had lunged upward and 
snapped at him, had been sufficient to convince 
Deane, beyond a peradventure, of the “blue-gum’s ” 
own confidence in his ability to inflict death by 
fleshing his teeth. 


LAWYER MEREDITH. 


149 


“ I’ve heard some of this before,” the lawyer ob- 
served thoughtfully, when his client had made an 
end of speaking. “ I mean about the bite of a 
‘blue-gum’ being considered venomous. Haven’t 
you ?” turning to Voss. 

“ All my life,” that gentleman assented. “ But it 
has been chiefly among the negroes. White people 
must have believed there was something in it 
though, before the War, because I remember, on 
two occasions, going with my father to court-house 
sales of negroes, and hearing him refuse to purchase 
particular ones because they had blue-gums. Once 
it was a man, and the second time a woman, and 
both negroes were as likely and strapping as pos- 
sible. I questioned him about it afterward and he 
said he’d just as soon have a lot of gun-cotton loose 
about the plantation as a ‘blue-gum.’ That they 
were the very devil.” 

“ It’s held to be a sign of royal blood among them, 
isn’t it ?” 

“ I believe so. They play the dickens on a place 
and terrorize the balance of the negroes, I know — or 
used to formerly. Things may be different among 
them now.” 

Meredith seemed lost in thought. 

“When I was a small boy we had one,” he de- 
liberated. “ It is just coming back to me. He was 
a lanky, spindling fellow, built like a black-snake; 
and there was an impression of awe connected with 
him in my mind. His wool was cut close, all ex- 
cept what negroes call the ‘palate lock,’ on the top 
of his head. This was very curiously arranged. It 


was pulled up, and wrapped tightly with string 
made of eel’s skin, for about an inch and a half 
above the skull. Above that it bunched out, like the 
wick of a mean tallow candle, thick and fuzzy. The 
effect was that of a lonesome palm tree on a desert 
eminence. My father sold him; but I can’t recall 
what for. I must think that fellow up.” 

He turned to Deane. “ I don’t seem to remember 
ever having heard of a white man with blue-gums 
before. Are you sure this Ranke hadn’t a black 
drop in his veins ? Mulattoes have blue-gums 
sometimes. What’s your idea about Ranke ?” 

Deane ruminated. “ I always set him down 
for white,” he answered. “ He claimed it — stop, 
though! — he simply assumed it, like anybody else, 
and never, to my knowledge, was contradicted. 
Certainly not to his face. He had light gray eyes 
and a high nose, and I’ve seen many a full-blooded 
white with curlier hair. His skin was dark, but that 
might have been partly due to outside causes. 
What with weather and smoky chimneys, hill folks 
don’t keep fair much. Some people used to hold 
that Ranke must have black blood on account of his 
gums. They hadn’t anything else to go on.” 

“ He was a stranger ?” 

“ Not in my time. He wasn’t born and raised on 
Tuckahoe, like most of the balance. He bought in 
and settled himself. But he was there — a grown 
man, as far back as I can remember.” 

“ Have any company ? Kinsfolks, or acquaint- 
ances coming to see him sociably from other 
places ?” 


LAWYER MEREDITH. 


I 5 I 

“ Lord love yon! I don’t know,” Deane made 
answer hearty. “ He wasn’t popular, and his cabin 
was in a mighty lonesome place. He went and 
came a good deal himself — flitting suddenly and 
then returning. That was what made him so dead- 
bent on getting hold of my mare. He liked to feel 
a good horse under him.” 

“ You haven’t any idea what he did for a living, 
then ?” 

“ He cropped a little. He owned a right good 
piece of ground, but most of it was in pasture. He 
was a mighty slack farmer too, and never had pro- 
duce to sell. I’ve known him have to buy feed for 
his stock often. He raised chickens too, for cock- 
fighting. But he never sold any.” 

“ And yet he always had money ?” 

“Always,” Deane assented. “Folks used to 
wonder where he got it from. It was plentiful 
with him too. As I told you, there was several hun- 
dred dollars of Ranke’s money scattered about the 
cabin floor when I came away ” 

“ What became of that money ?” 

The lawyer lowered his tone and fired the 
question like a shot. Mr. Voss, wearied by this 
repetition of things known, had risen and gone to 
the window. 

Rutherford stared. 

“ It was burned, I suppose, along with the cabin. 
That’s always been my theory, The gold is mixed 
up somewhere with the ashes and the notes van- 
ished in smoke. What else could have become of 
it ?” 


152 




“ That ‘ha’mt’ knows.” 

Meredith’s tone was significant. 

Rutherford bent suddenly forward and lowered 
his own tone. 

“You don’t mean — you don’t suppose ” he 

hesitated. 

“Yes, I do. And you’ll see I’m right too. Now 
say no more and we’ll go for a stroll around the 
place to stretch our legs before supper. You will 
stay with me to-night, Voss?” elevating his voice. 
“ My mother will like to see you again and have a 
chat about old times. She lives with me, you 
know, and is a wonderful old lady for upwards of 
eighty. You’ll see for yourself. Your horses have 
been put away. I haven’t anything like done with 
Rutherford yet.” 

And so it was arranged. After which the three 
men strolled out and visited the meadows and the 
stables, where the lawyer made the personal ac- 
quaintance of Rutherford’s famous red mare. 

But he did not see fit to disclose to them then, 
nor in the talk which he had with Deane later, just 
how much he himself knew about Wolfe Ranke. 


MIDNIGHT MUSING. 


153 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MIDNIGHT MUSING. 

That night when all were asleep Meredith sat in 
an arm-chair over his chamber fire and reviewed the 
situation. His brain worked like an orderly piece 
of mechanism, adjusting, comparing, making de- 
ductions and arriving at conclusions. Before mid- 
night he had arranged his plan of defence, subject 
to modifications, of course, but, in the main, satis- 
factory. 

That done he busied himself with side issues, 
notably with all the stories he had ever heard about 
“ blue-gums.” Whether or not human beings could 
be scientifically convicted of the possession of poison 
glands he cared not a baubee. In verity, there 
might be no organic difference between the secre- 
tions of a discolored mouth and the secretions of 
one of normal redness. That was for others to in- 
vestigate and determine. That which he had to 
handle was this belief as he found it. Among a 
certain class faith in the difference existed, and was 
responsible for definite results. It was wide-spread, 
moreover, and shared by both races. With white 
and black alike, a “blue-gum ” was a creature gifted 
with the same deadly powers which pertain to angry 
serpents and rabid canines. They were held to be 


“ damned dangerous,” and secretly feared and de- 
tested. It was marvelous! The more he pondered 
over the matter the more it struck him in that light. 
Knowledge of this belief, or superstition, came to 
him now as no new thing; but he had never defi- 
nitely thought of it before, never recognized that, 
given certain conditions, it might prove a factor. 

He cast his thoughts backward and endeavored to 
recall why that “blue-gum” once owned by his 
father had been parted with. He could remember 
the man’s appearance distinctly enough, and his 
sinister aspect when he smiled. He could remem- 
ber also the deference with which the other servants 
treated the fellow, and how they would make “ luck- 
signs ” with their fingers when they thought he was 
not observing them. What had that man been sold 
for? It must have been under pressure of some 
sort, for he was a specially valuable negro — a skilled 
mechanic. He would question his mother about it. 

There were still, settled about the plantation, two 
or three of his father’s people, contemporaries of 
the “blue-gum.” He would interview them all and 
endeavor to elicit information and illustration on 
this point of venom. 

Then his thought passed from the case to the 
client. He liked the fellow’s straightforward man- 
ner, and his face with its honest outlook. To Mere- 
dith it seemed a manly thing that Deane should 
have come forward at once and assumed the respon- 
sibility properly belonging to him instead of waiting 
until things should be found out and the deed 
fastened on him from the outside — or worse still, 


MIDNIGHT MUSING . 


155 


hugging himself in unsuspected security while 
another man suffered vicariously. The lawyer was 
too deeply versed in the arcana of human nature 
and too familiar with the seamy side of life not to 
be fully aware of how great must have been the 
temptation to silence. For any man who, like 
Deane Rutherford, must be the architect of his own 
fortunes in their entirety, to deliberately give him- 
self such a serious social set-back as this might 
prove for the sake of truth and honor proved that 
his calibre was of the straightest. Meredith felt in- 
clined to take off his hat in recognition of the big- 
ness of this thing. Continued silence would have 
been so easy. There was much, however, in heredi- 
ty. Old Sam Rutherford had been a square man, 
and it seemed fitting that his son should be cut by 
the same pattern. 

And this pestilential “ blue-gum ” whom all the 
coil was about ? Years before Meredith had known 
Wolfe Ranke well enough, and in more than one 
county-town, and had known little good of him. 
Members of the legal profession have often a 
pretty fancy for cards, and even for a set-to with 
cocks in a tavern back-yard. Meredith had never 
been overtly addicted to sport himself, even in his 
buckish days; but he had been brought freely into 
contact with men of all grades who were, Wolfe 
Ranke among the number. Ranke had never, to 
his knowledge, been detected in any clearly re- 
cognizable blacklegism, but he remembered well 
enough that the “blue-gum” had been accredited 
with a marvelous gift of shuffling and dealing. He 




156 

remembered also to have noted rural tavern keepers 
on several occasions refuse to allow card-playing, 
about when Ranke was of the party. Once he had 
questioned a man who kept a primitive house of call 
in an outlying district as to the reason of the em- 
bargo, and had received in reply a generalization on 
the theme of too much money being dropped over 
cards at a tavern injuring business. 

The two professions of Meredith’s life, law and 
arms, had knocked out of him all false sentimen- 
tality, leaving as residuum an individual code of 
ethics simple in its severity. He honestly believed 
that, after a certain limit, the quicker the world was 
rid of an obnoxious individual the better for the 
body politic. It was for this reason, more than any 
other, that he had quitted the criminal practice. He 
had “no stomach to defend a man whom he thought 
in his soul deserved hanging,” he was wont to de- 
clare. And once he had been known to actually 
thank the opposing counsel (out of court) for secur- 
ing a verdict against him. 

“ I did the best possible for a case to which I was 
held by my promise minus my belief,” he averred 
upon that occasion. “ And I’m heartily glad that 
you beat me. Had I secured a verdict it would 
have been iniquitous, and my conscience would have 
carried a weight. Hey! What’s that about the 
fee? Damn the fee! I’m ashamed of myself for 
defending the fellow anyhow, and I’ll have none of 
his money in my pocket. Y ou may be very sure of 
that.” 

This story, freely circulated, served to fasten on 


MIDNIGHT MUSING. 


*57 


Trave Meredith the reputation of being a crank. 
And so he was. More, he was an intolerant crank, 
opinionated and a trifle domineering, but the people 
trusted him and, despite his crankiness, were prone 
to follow his leadership. About the case in hand 
he had already a fixed conviction. The “ blue- 
gum ” had been killed because he needed killing. 
As he gazed into the fire, thinking, the lawyer’s 
brows were knit and his jaws squared as though the 
dead man had inflicted upon him some personal in- 
jury. 

The fire had died down to the back-log, a glow- 
ing mass of burning that had once been a massive 
stick of black oak. Even as Meredith gazed it 
parted in the middle and collapsed between the and- 
irons, sending up sparks and giving forth a soft 
sound as the coals settled; pale violet flames danced 
up and down uncertainly and a faint film of ashes 
began to spread itself. Meredith’s legs were crossed . 
and his left hand rested upon his knee. The reflec- 
tion from the bed of coals touched to light a heavy 
gold band which he wore on his third finger. His eye 
c anight it and his expression changed. He lifted his 
hand and turned the ring slowly until his thumb 
nail rested in an inequality in the chasing. This he 
pressed and a thin slither of gold • slipped around 
and hid itself in the other half of the circle, leaving 
disclosed, between narrow rims of gold, a finely 
braided tress of chestnut hair. The man’s face 
softened and a glow as of youth came to his eyes. 
Then he drew the protecting sheath of gold again 
to its place and leaned back in his chair thinking. 


Nearly thirty years before that ring had been 
given him by the woman who was to have been his 
wife. 

The magic slides of long ago slipped forward and 
fell into position, one by one, and the lens of fancy, 
lighted by memory, reflected scenes like pictures. 
Thirty years ago the old homestead had been full of 
exuberant young life, and effervescent with fun, 
noise and jollity. His two sisters, so long staid mar- 
ried women that they had grown children around 
them, had then been the gayest of light-hearted 
girls, and Parke Oswald, his bonnie sweetheart, had 
been intimate with them. Sometimes she would 
come and pay them visits in the old house which 
they all thought was to be her home, but not often, 
for she had been a sedate little maiden with a very 
proper notion of how to manage her affairs. Dur- 
ing one of her visits, when they had been engaged 
three months, she had given him this ring, with its 
hidden tress of her chestnut hair. How that visit 
came back to him, seeming to start out into promi- 
nence beyond its fellows, perhaps because it was the 
last time she had ever stood beneath his roof. They 
had had other guests as well, a sort of house-party 
in the cordial old Virginia fashion. Circuit court 
had been holding at Tuckahoe Court-House for more 
than a week, and in the evenings the gay young 
limbs of the law would ride out to the Meredith 
homestead for supper and, perhaps, an impromptu 
dance. 

One afternoon came specially before him. He 
had been in court all day, arguing a case, and later 


MIDNIGHT MUSING. 


I 59 


would take a party of young men home with him. 
As he left the court-house his attention had been 
attracted by a larger crowd than usual collected on 
the tavern porch, and he had sauntered across the 
grassy lane which did duty for a street to ascertain 
the cause of it. He had found the people grouped 
about a roughly-clad mountaineer who sat in their 
midst with a violin in his hands. And even as he 
had joined the group the man had lifted his instru- 
ment and drawn the bow lovingly across the strings. 

Meredith had listened with the rest, feeling that 
this was no ordinary fiddling, but unable to deter- 
mine then wherein lay the difference. It was a 
strange, wild melody, the like of which he had never 
heard before, and being a man who could see as well 
as hear with his ears, it showed him a lonely place 
in a far forest, mightily uplifted, and a tiny stream 
just forcing its way upward and outward. The air 
seemed full of the pulsing of nature, the wooing of 
nesting birds, the hum and stir of insects, the noises 
of larger life, and the breathing of winds. Through 
all and above all was the music of a stream new- 
born, learning its pathway out into the world, learn- 
ing its language, and gurgling and murmuring over 
the effort. After a little the strains quickened, 
there were merry leapings from rock to rock, sud- 
den slips down steep places, short or high, and still 
pauses for rest in pools. Then came mad, headlong 
rushes into whirlpools, passionate uprisings, with 
deep churning up of mud and foulness; swift falls, 
with the grim unsightliness of sodden banks, long 
stretches of peaceful flowing, and through all a 


i6o 




steady growth in power and volume. The music 
broadened and deepened and swung forward with a 
steady current. The plain was reached and there 
was a glad union of waters, and a grand pulsing 
harmony as the life of two rivers rolled forward in 
majesty to the far blue sea. 

There had been talk afterward among the men 
and a change in the music, for Sam Rutherford had 
been a magician with the bow, but Meredith had 
not cared for any of it but this, which had fitted in 
with his mood and stirred him wonderfully. He 
had made occasion to question Rutherford as to 
where he had learned the thing, and had been 
quietly informed that “a cle’r spring up on Tucka- 
hoe done it all cornin’ down the mounting, an’ the 
‘ old lady ’ she just followed natu’al.” 

He had been minded that Parke should hear it 
also, and so had arranged with Sam to come out to 
his place that very night and play. And before the 
rest of the guests assembled he had brought his 
sweetheart out to a quaint little side-porch almost 
like a balcony, and there Sam had played for them 
this music of the clear spring on Tuckahoe. 

Parke, in her full-skirted robe of white, looking 
fair and sweet as an almond blossom, had been 
moved by the music as he had known she would be, 
and had leaned against him, in the semi-darkness, 
listening with lips apart and eyes filled with a tender 
dream -light; and as she listened her little fingers 
had twisted and turned slowly about his this ring 
which she had given him. And Sam, seated on the 
steps with his back discreetly toward them, had 


MIDNIGHT MUSING. 


161 

seemed to know nothing, and yet to know all, and 
to subtly weave it into his music until the theme 
became instinct with the very pulse of life. 

Thirty years ago that was — and there was nothing 
left of it but memories that would come, dream-like, 
to a lonely man over a dying fire in the night 
silence. 

Meredith stirred in his chair, stiff from long sit- 
ting, and mechanically took out his watch to wind 
it. Through the still house broke the echoing 
sounds of a clock giving the hour, and from the 
poultry yard came the strident noise of the roosters 
crowing for day. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. 

Meredith threw himself into the case with energy 
and it was arranged that he should communicate 
with the prosecuting attorney at once, and attend 
to all necessary legal processes so that the trial for 
the killing of Wolfe Ranke might retain its place 
on the docket for the approaching term of court. 
There would be small difficulty about this, as the 
isolated courts of a country circuit are rarely con- 
ducted with full panoply of formal circumstance, 
save at discretion, and their dockets are seldom sur- 
charged with business. Added to which the at- 
torney for the commonwealth was a personal friend 
of Meredith’s and not likely to prove himself a will- 
ful obstructionist. 

Rutherford’s instant surrender of himself when 
the facts became known to him would impress the 
Court in his favor, and Mr. Voss volunteered to go 
bail for him to any amount that might be required. 

The man wrongfully held in durance must, of 
course, be liberated at once, with all necessary ex- 
planations. Rutherford mooted the question of 
reimbursing his involuntary substitute, at least for 
loss of time, and any damage which might have ac- 
crued to his business. The fellow had been in jail 
better than three months, he said, and had an inter- 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. 163 

est. in a saw-mill back in the woods somewhere. 
His business must have suffered from neglect. 

“ No, it hasn’t,” the lawyer returned, comfortably. 
“ I happen to know Trotter’s partner, who is a mid- 
dling sharp fellow and as lively as a grass-hopper. 
I’ll guarantee any business he has a hand in will get 
looked after. Jim’s got a couple of boys grown too, 
and his wife J s a capable woman. As for the three 
months of jail, that ain’t going 1 to hurt him. I’ve 
got my own theory about Mr. Jim and we’ll see what 
it’s worth before he’s invited to dip his hand in your 
pocket. Let the matter rest until we find out 
whether he hasn’t had it there already.” 

“ How are you going to find out ?” queried 
Deane. 

Meredith laughed. 

“ There are ways of squeezing out evidence,” 
quoth he, sententiously. “And I’m familiar with 
some of ’em. For one thing I propose to see with 
my own eyes, hear with my own ears, and judge 
with my own understanding. In other words I pro- 
pose to have an interview with that < ha’rnt ’ before 
I’m done.” 

Deane laughed in his turn. 

“ ‘ Ha’rnts ’ are pretty rank in the mountains,” he 
affirmed. “ Or they used to be in my day. They 
always are in neighborhoods where stills are run. 
You can jump ’em up in most any laurel-brake of a 
moonshine night if you’re screwed up right. Jim 
Trotter had been tilting his elbow considerably, 
along with those hunters, I reckon. Lord bless you! 
I know ’em.” 


164 




Meredith made no rejoinder and the subject, for 
the moment, lapsed. 

As business, as well as legal, steps would be re- 
quisite to meet the situation on account of the com- 
plexity of interests involved, it was further decided 
that Rutherford should return immediately to Win- 
ock and consult with his employers. Arrangements 
necessary for the conduct of the factory must be 
made, to hold for the time during which Rutherford 
would be obliged to withdraw himself from 
management. Being reasonably sure of his verdict, 
there seemed no necessity that he should resign his 
situation, although that, of course, would be matter 
for the decision of the owners. That his employers 
should be admitted to confidence ahead of the 
general public, Deane felt to be their due, and he 
was resolute that everything should be open and 
above-board in regard to this affair in future. That 
one concealment of the past had been too prolific of 
unpleasant consequences to make him choose secrecy 
again for his friend. 

For reasons which appeared to him cogent, he 
decided that the Ruthven family also should hear 
first of the affair from himself. He had no right to 
appeal directly to J oyce, or to assume that she had 
special interest in his life, and yet he most earnestly 
desired that she should get hold of the facts in their 
simplicity. Nobody better than Deane could realize 
how much his case might be prejudiced in the girl’s 
eyes by exaggeration or misstatement. He can- 
vassed the matter thoroughly, sitting alone in his 
office the evening of his return to Winock, and ulti- 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. 165 

mately decided that his best plan would be to com- 
municate with Fred Ruthven. The dominant im- 
pulse common to humanity, irrespective of sex, to 
ventilate a sensational happening, and to assume 
superiority over being the first informed of it, 
might, he thought, be safely counted on to get the 
information conveyed to Fred’s womenkind. 

His first idea was to ride out to Manitoba and tell 
his story by word of mouth; but to this scheme, 
while, in some respects, it seemed most satisfactory, 
there were many objections. In the first place 
Joyce would get, instead of his — Deane’s — version, 
a summary of the impressions made upon her 
brother subject to any lapse of memory or misap- 
prehension that might chance. And in the second 
place it was by no means certain that should he go 
to Manitoba he would be able to see any member 
of the family. Scarlet fever still held the household 
in quarantine and anxiety. He had made inquiry 
immediately on his return, going purposely to Dr. 
Craige Hatton’s office to do so. 

Little Edmund was well past the crisis, the doctor 
said, this being the tenth day with him, but the 
whole flock had been infected and one of the girls 
was in bed and another drooping. Fortunately the 
disease had, so far, manifested itself in a mild form, 
but it was excessively treacherous in its nature, and 
prone to malevolent after-claps. In reply to Deane’s 
question, Dr. Hatton further declared that on the 
principle of eruptive fevers, like lightning, never 
striking twice in the same place, the grown people 
should escape since they had all had it. It was an 


1 66 




anxious time, however, for all of them. The doctor 
unconsciously used the word “ us,” identifying him- 
self with his patients as a good physician must, and 
speaking without overt personal intention. 

Sitting in his office, Deane remembered the pro- 
noun and was badgered by it. He felt miserably 
outside and set apart. None the less was he deter- 
mined to do the best possible for himself. A man 
must be devoid of self-respect, or moved by some 
grand impulse of abnegation, who will quietly allow 
the woman he loves to think less well of him than 
the occasion warrants. 

The letter he wrote Ruthven was a straightfor- 
ward, manly piece of work, masterly in its direct- 
ness, its terse simplicity and its positive assumption 
that the writer’s point of view was the only one pos- 
sible. There was not a rhetorical pose, an excuse, 
or an attempt at self-exculpation in the whole thing. 
It was a plain exposition of an awful necessity which 
in itself was justification of an equally awful result. 
Then followed the history of additional and subse- 
quent results and that which must be their climax. 

“ Had I not heard from Dr. Hatton that your 
little son was out of danger,” Deane wrote, “ I should 
not have encroached upon time and forbearance by 
thrusting my affairs on your notice. As it is, my 
only excuse is that appreciation of the cordial hos- 
pitality extended me by yourself and family makes 
me unwilling to permit a, possibly, garbled public 
version of the affair to be the first intimation you 
have of it. I prefer to tell you the story myself. 
It is due you that I should do so. My one enduring 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. 167 

regret in the whole matter is that I did not speak 
out as I should have done ten years ago. There 
seemed no necessity for it then however, and my 
judgment was immature. That blunder must be 
rectified, and as speedily as possible.” 

When he reached this point Deane paused, pen in 
hand, longing to add some special message, some 
earnest word for Joyce. He felt it hard that he 
could not, that social restrictions held him aloof. 
He eVen felt it hard that he must take this matter 
to the head of her family instead of directly to her. 
But even while he chafed under them he felt that 
the restrictions were good — that women must be 
hedged in with seemliness of observance, lest men 
should lapse into primitive brutalities. Loving 
J oyce was not enough ; he must induce her to accept 
the deposit before he would have any right to draft on 
her. He sighed impatiently; then closed his letter 
with simple expressions of good-will and sympathy, 
and proffers of such service as might be in his power. 

When the letter reached him, Ruthven was smok- 
ing his pipe in the front yard, seated on a section of 
the vertebra of a whale, which had been presented 
to his grandfather as a curiosity by a sea-faring 
friend. It made a not uncomfortable seat, and the 
yard, feebly warmed by the March sunshine, seemed 
infinitely more attractive than the house, which had 
taken on the lonesome, preoccupied expression in- 
side which comes with the presence of sickness. 
Ruthven was an anxious father, and when anything 
was the matter with his children would hang about 
the house a good deal, tormenting himself and 


1 68 




everybody else with endless questions and utterly 
impracticable suggestions. His eagerness to be of 
service was only matched by his incapacity, and the 
patience of the nurses was drafted upon heavily 
whenever they let him into the sick rooms. But 
they liked to have him about, even when he drove 
them well-nigh frantic, and to feel that every throb 
of suspense they endured found its reflex in him. 
They kept an eye on him too, and first one and then 
the other would come out and sit with him awhile, 
to cheer and comfort him. 

Edmund was decidedly better and the little girls 
no worse, so Fred was feeling tolerably easy and dis- 
engaged, which was so much in Rutherford’s favor. 
The boy whose business it was to handle the mail 
brought the bag out to Fred, who emptied its con- 
tents on to the grass beside him and picked out such 
as belonged to himself. The thickness of Ruther- 
ford’s letter made him eschew it at first, but after a 
cursory examination of some bills and circulars, he 
broke the seal. The handwriting was unfamiliar 
and he turned to the signature, which caused him 
surprise. Deane Rutherford. Odd! What could 
a man just over in the village, hardly fifteen min- 
utes’ ride away, possibly have to say to him which 
would require such an amount of writing ? His 
curiosity was aroused and he proceeded to inform 
himself. First he read rapidly, scanning the lines 
with only moderate interest, but about the middle 
of the second page he suddenly ejaculated “ The 
devil /” like a man amazed, and clinched to his work 
with intensity. 


THE MANITOBA FA MIL V HEAR THE NE WS . 1 6 9 

He read the letter twice, from start to finish, and 
when he reached the signature a second time, 
pushed back his hat and whistled. “ Here’s a pretty 
kettle of fish! ” was his thought. Then he bundled 
the rest of the mail into the bag again, restored his 
own letter to its envelope and pocketed it, and pro- 
ceeded to the house in search of some one with 
whom to share this astonishing bit of intelligence. 

As it happened, Joyce was the first person he 
came across. She was in the dining-room warming 
some beef-tea for Edmund over an oil-stove. Ruth- 
ven opened fire at once. 

“ Look here, J oyce, I thought you told me that 
Deane Rutherford was a gentleman.” 

Joyce stared at him in amazement, as well she 
might. 

“ So he is,” she retorted, her eyes beginning to 
kindle. 

“ I don’t mean in that sense,” Fred amended. “Of 
course he’s an honorable, straight-forward fellow, 
and all that. And he’s just done as gentlemanly 
a thing as a man could do. I mean in the social 
sense purely. You gave me to understand that he 
came of good blood — of what negroes call the 
‘quality,’ in short. How’d you get the impression ? 
He’s nothing of the sort.” 

“ Who told you ?” 

“ He did,” producing Deane’s letter, and intent 
on getting the matter straight in his mind all 
around. “ He comes of a family of mountaineers 
living out here in the woods on Tuckahoe. Honest 
folks enough, I reckon^ but poor, and utterly un- 


educated. Where’d you meet Rutherford ? Some- 
body gave me the impression that Uncle Charlie 
introduced him to you. Is that so ?” 

Marveling what all this preamble would presently 
lead up to, Joyce recounted her visit to the Iron- 
Works, her meeting with Deane, his courtesy to her 
and the favorable impression made, both on her 
uncle and herself, by his own personality and the 
encomiums passed upon him by Mr. Voss. She 
stated also that since the renewal of the acquaint- 
ance Deane had often talked to her of his old home, 
and his early life of primitive simplicity among the 
hills. He was by no means ashamed of his begin- 
nings, she said, nor had he any cause to be. His 
father had been a freeholder, in a small way, it was 
true, but still living on his own land and paying his 
own way. That Deane was the architect of his own 
advancement redounded greatlyto his credit. Joyce 
spoke nervously, almost aggressively, as though she 
were preparing already to do battle against preju- 
dices. She held her voice steady and strove not to 
betray overt interest; but she was all the while 
quivering with excitement and suspense. Why 
should Deane be explaining his social status to her 
brother ? Why should he interview Fred at all be- 
fore he had spoken to her ? Her hand trembled so 
that when she tried to lower the flame of the lamp 
she nearly put it out. 

Meanwhile Fred, who had no glimmering of a 
notion that his sister’s concern in the matter would 
be other than his own, mere outside interest and sym- 
pathy, leavened with pleasurable excitement over a 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. i 7I 

sensational story connected with a personal acquaint- 
ance, seated himself on the edge of the dining-room 
table, prepared not only to read the letter aloud, but 
to discuss it in all its ramifications. Never having 
entertained the idea that his sister might contem- 
plate marrying Deane Rutherford, he had no sort 
of objection to him in the character of a self-made 
man, and indeed, rather admired the prowess which 
had resulted in so successful a making. He had 
simply made his initial inquiries to prepare Joyce’s 
mind, as it were, for a proper grasp on the sequence 
of things. How could she understand about Ruther- 
ford’s being so intimately mixed up with these moun- 
tain roughs unless she realized first the fact that he 
also had come of the people ? Finding her better 
informed than he had supposed, he wasted no more 
time in preliminaries, but dashed at the main item, 
delightfully conscious that he was about to make a 
sensation. 

“ Rutherford’s in no end of a pickle, Joyce. He’s 
regularly up a tree— and a mighty tall tree, at that. 
He’ll be lucky if he gets down on his feet, I can tell 
you. He’s written me all about it, which was an 
uncommon handsome thing to do considering how 
short a time we’ve known him. He says our kind- 
ness, hospitality and all that gives us the right to 
hear this story at first hand. Not one man in a 
hundred would look at the matter in that light, 
which makes me say that it is handsome of Ruther- 
ford. It seems that ten years ago — stop! I’ll read 
it to you. Here’s what he says himself.” 

Fred flirted over a page, and then turned it back 


172 


? — 

again, searching. His sister had drawn nearer — her 
occupation for the moment forgotten. Her heart 
beat thick and her face was blanching; in her domi- 
nating eagerness to know instantly what it all might 
mean, she had much ado to keep from snatching the 
letter from his hand. This could be no love story 
which had been told her brother. What was it ? 

In the next few moments she knew. 

And Ruthven got all the sensation he had counted 
on, with a margin, for without a word, but with a 
face as pallid as a dark-bleached plant, J oyce caught 
the letter from his hand and went away with it 
straight to her own room. 

Left thus unceremoniously alone, the young man 
stared after his sister with amazement mingled with 
dawning comprehension. His under- jaw dropped, 
and his attitude of mind developed into one of un- 
qualified consternation. Here was a pretty kettle of 
fish with a vengeance ! 

When his wife came out of the sick room three 
minutes later in pursuit of Joyce and the beef-tea, 
he poured the whole story into her ear, following 
her back to little Edmund’s bedside and continuing 
to talk while she gave the child nourishment. 

Louise listened with interest and consternation 
equal to his own. Her . mind grasped the practical 
side of the situation at once. 

“This is awful, Fred !” she exclaimed, “perfectly 
awful ! Can they do anything to him ? As I under- 
stand the story, it was simply man-slaughter. The 
men fought in anger and one killed the other. It 
might just as easily have been Mr. Rutherford him- 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. 173 

self who was killed. It was an even fight, you say. 
Can they do anything dreadful to him ?” 

Fred pondered. “We haven’t got all the bearings 
of the case yet,” he answered. “ We’ve only heard 
Rutherford’s side of it. If he can substantiate his 
story, I don’t see how the verdict cam be other than 
justifiable homicide. But that’s the point, you see. 
He may not be able to prove his position, or the 
other fellow may have friends who will push the 
matter to its limit. Such a thing as an unbiased 
jury isn’t possible. It’s tom-foolery to claim that 
there can be, and Rutherford may have to run the 
gauntlet of all sorts of ignorance and prejudice. 
The best sort of men dodge jury-service like small- 
pox, and the rank and file who usually serve can’t 
be counted on. It’s my opinion that they’ll bring it 
in manslaughter.” 

“And that will be ?” Mrs. Ruthven looked 

at her husband questioningly. 

“ Imprisonment in jail, or penitentiary, for a long 
or short term as the jury may determine. It’s a 
pretty serious business you see, my dear.” 

“ And if he gets the other verdict — what then ?” 
she inquired. 

“ He’ll be acquitted of course. Justifiable homi- 
cide is acquittal — it’s proving that a fellow couldn’t 
have acted other than he did. If Rutherford gets 
that he’ll be all right with the world, because every- 
body knows killing is imperative sometimes. But 
he mayn’t get it. Good Lord ! it makes me hot all 

over to think about it, because of ” He paused 

and stared interrogatively at his wife. 


174 


She returned his look with one of vivid intelli- 
gence, hut said never a word. 

“ How long have you known about this, Louise ?” 

“ About what ?” 

“ Don’t pretend! It’s exasperating! You know 
well enough what I mean.” 

His tone was impatient. 

“ How long have you ?” 

“ I give you my word such an idea never crossed 
my mind until fifteen minutes ago. It was Joyce’s 
own face that gave her away. Rutherford’s an 
agreeable, talented fellow, and we all liked him. I 
knew all that well enough. But I never suspected 
anything special in his coming, more than that he 
found the place pleasant.” 

“And you and me also, and the children,” derided 
his wife. “ We doubtless . constituted the supreme 
attraction. I wonder when men will cease being 
moles and bats about their own sisters ? Mr. 
Rutherford’s state of mind has been manifest for 
weeks. Anybody but an idiot — or a brother — could 
have seen what he was after. It was fairly sign- 
boarded.” 

Ruthven thrust aside the imputation of obtusity 
with acrimony. 

“ A man’s head wasn’t always running on senti- 
ment,” he declared. “ And he hasn’t got his eye 
cocked for a love affair every time one of his own 
sex comes near a pretty woman. He’s got other 
things to think about; things of vastly more import- 
ance.” 

“ Could anything be of more importance than this ?” 


THE MANITOBA FAMILY HEAR THE NEWS. 175 

Louise demanded, pertinently. “ If so, I’d like you 
to show it to me.” 

Floored for the nonce, Ruthven dropped into a 
chair and proceeded to work himself into a fume of 
indignation all around. It was monstrous and 
abominable! What right had a fellow like Ruther- 
ford, with a criminal trial liable to bounce out on 
him at any moment, to come philandering after any 
respectable young woman. ? And what business had 
J oyce to be encouraging a man of whose antecedence 
she knew, one might say, next to nothing ? Above 
all, what the dickens was to be done about it ? He 
— Fred — felt like a man standing in semi-obscurity 
surrounded by wires and pulleys and afraid for his 
life to lay finger to any one of them lest he should 
precipitate some horrid catastrophe. His wife 
counseled a masterly inaction. 

“Wait,” she said, astutely, “and don’t move an 
eyelash or stir a finger. Time enough to meddle 
when you find out what the verdict will be. The 
trial itself may settle the matter with Joyce, and it’s 
no use in getting into hot water beforehand. Mr. 
Rutherford, as far as I can judge on your report, 
has behaved well, and his giving himself up was a 
grand thing. I must see his letter myself. Where 
is it? Oh, Joyce has it. Well, I’ll get it from her 
after awhile. And, Fred, don’t you go crusading 
about Deane Rutherford. I’m a woman myself and 
I know that just as sure as you do Joyce will exalt 
him into a hero and martyr at once. When a woman 
begins to champion a man the only thing that 
ever will save her from him is for the man himself 


176 


? — 

to fail her someway. Outside pressure will never 
do it.” 

Which observation went to prove Mrs. Ruthven 
not only a clever, but a womanly woman. Her hus- 
band acquiesced in her dictum, partly because his 
own sense showed him that the time for intermed- 
dling in his sister’s affairs was not yet; and partly 
also from an inner conviction that if there should 
ever come a clash of wills between Joyce and him- 
self it would be Greek meet Greek. 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT, 


177 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 

In her own room Joyce read and re-read Ruther- 
ford’s letter, trying to grapple with its very arcana, 
to look beyond the characters and signs upon the 
page into what must have been the writer’s thought 
as he penned them. That past event of his life was 
horrible to her, not as a thing over which he had 
had control, but rather as an outside and hideous 
misfortune. The idea of attaching blame to him 
for killing the “ blue-gum” never entered her mind; 
she only felt commiseration and sympathy that such 
a cruel necessity should have arisen. In truth she 
thought precious little about the dead man at all. 
He was, to her, a miserable creature who had sought 
to destroy her lover, and if he had perished in the 
attempt, why, he had gotten no more than he de- 
served. 

Women are cruel as well as tender in their love, 
and prone to think the god of their idolatry should 
be the universal fetich. Even the best and sweetest 
of women are capable of demanding human sacri- 
fices in honor of their love. 

Ranke’s death, therefore, weighed on Joyce’s 
mind not a whit; nor did Deane’s silence at the 
time, That appeared venal, since if there had been 


i 7 8 




need to speak he would have spoken, even as now. 
That which afflicted her was her own position — or 
more accurately, lack of position toward this man 
whom she loved with all her warm, loyal heart, and 
whom she felt convinced loved her as well. She 
was proud of him — proud of his honor, his truth, 
his sterling manhood. To her it seemed a grand 
and glorious thing, this voluntary surrender of him- 
self. In her love and agitation she could not recog- 
nize it for the simple act of justice it was, but 
glorified it into heroism of the first degree. Deane 
would have been a craven if he had held his peace, 
but that fact escaped her, and she laid her head 
down on her pillow and cried as if her heart would 
break because she could not burn incense openly 
before him for speaking. 

Why had not Deane put into words the love which 
she felt was in his heart, which she had read clearly 
in his eyes, so that the right to stand by him in this 
trouble might have been hers ? She so longed to 
encourage and uphold him in the sight of men with 
her love and faith; to rally to his support. before^ the. 
whole world. It was hard to be obliged to stand 
aloof from her lover, to be obliged to hold down the 
impulses of her heart because spoken language had 
not defined the position! The cause of an ordinary 
acquaintance, even that of a stranger, she might 
champion with full vigor, but not this cause of the 
man she loved, for very self-consciousness, for very 
knowledge of the fact that she who felt herself every- 
thing to him, in the eyes of the world was still noth- 
ing to him. 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 


179 


It was maddening to think of! It was being 
homeless and unprotected, like a crustacean quit of 
one shell and not yet accoutered with another. Her 
maiden serenity had been stripped from her and 
there was in its place no security of betrothal. 
Love and womanly dignity stood apart, two masters 
to be served. 

If only he had spoken before this horrible com- 
plication arose! Now, she could see quite plainly 
that he must, perforce, remain silent until after this 
trial, and — who knew ? — perhaps then for all time. 

As recollection of the coming ordeal obtruded it- 
self J oyce’s thoughts became less purely personal. 
She sat up on the edge of the bed and pushed back 
the hair from her forehead. Then she picked up 
the letter and read it over again, but with a totally 
different idea dominant. 

The concise statement of the belief prevalent in 
the mountains of the venom of a “ blue-gum’s ” bite 
struck on her notice at once as a point of import- 
ance. It appealed to her imagination also, and 
touched the dormant superstition which seems an 
integral part of all Southern peoples. Where had 
she heard about this thing before ? Had it been 
only among the negroes ? Could it be possible for 
the saliva of a human being to become charged with 
poison like that of a brute ? She knew that the bite 
of a horse was considered dangerous, even when the 
animal was not afflicted with rabies. Not three 
miles from Manitoba there lived a white man who 
had lost his arm from the bite of a horse — not a 
hydrophobic horse either, but simply an ill-tempered 


i8o 




one. Old Dr. Hatton had told them of the case and 
had said that if the arm had not been amputated, 
the man must have died. It had swollen to twice 
its natural size and nothing would reduce it, and the 
wound had turned livid, with a horrid discharge. 
Once Fred had refused an apparently superb 
bargain in horse-flesh, because he happened to 
know that the beast offered had the biting habit. 

Where had she heard about “ blue-gums ” before ? 
Not for years, she knew, but she had heard of them 
And now she came to clinch her mind to the matter, 
she remembered to have seen one — a light mulatto 
woman with purplish-blue gums, long ago when she 
was a child, down at Aunt Venus’s house. She would 
go at once and question Aunt Venus about it. What 
that old woman did not know about popular super- 
stitions must be non-existent. 

Joyce bathed her face and tidied her hair, and 
then restored Rutherford’s letter to its envelope, 
leaving her room with it in her hand. Of course 
this thing would be discussed in the family. There 
was no reason why it should not be, nor had Joyce 
either wish or intention of suggesting any. She 
would meet the talk on neutral ground, as it were, 
and trust to her woman’s wit and intuitions for the 
salvation of both her secret and her loyalty. So she 
arranged with herself, tucking her head in a bush, 
after the manner of women and ostriches, and utter- 
ly oblivious of the fact that she had already copi- 
ously betrayed herself to her brother, and that her 
sister-in-law, being another woman, would not be 
easily hood-winked, 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 


181 


As she passed the door of the children’s rooms 
she looked in to assure herself that her forgetful- 
ness of the beef-tea had brought no harm to her 
little nephew. The child was sleeping easily, his 
breathing quiet, and his forehead and hands moist 
with perspiration. The little bowl on the stand 
beside the bed testified that his wants had been 
attended to, and his case seemed altogether satis- 
factory. In the inner room she could hear Louise 
moving softly about, ministering to one of the other 
children. J oyce glanced at the clock and discovered 
that it still wanted an hour to the time for the doc- 
tor’s visit. Craige was, as far as in him lay, punctu- 
ality itself, but she could run across to the cabin for 
a few words with Aunt Venus, and be back in plenty 
of time to help Louise recapitulate variations in 
symptoms. She put Rutherford’s letter on the 
medicine stand where her sister would be certain to 
find it and went out. 

The cabin occupied by the old colored woman 
stood in a small enclosure, one side of which was 
formed by the garden fence, through which a short 
cut led to the cabin. Aunt "Venus herself was an 
institution on the Manitoba estate, having arisen 
with it from chaos, Joyce was wont to maintain. 
She claimed to be a century old and her looks bore 
her out, for she was as crumpled and dark as the 
underside of a drying fungus. Her body had, to 
all appearances, mummified, but her faculties were 
still in tolerable repair, and her memory was really 
remarkable. She had been past all usefulness long 
before Joyce opened her eyes to the light of day, but 


182 




she enjoyed the comforts of her home, and was care- 
fully looked after by the white family, on the 
strength of traditional merit. Her personal wants 
were attended to by her great grand-daughter, her- 
self an elderly woman, who lived rent free and was 
partially supported by the Ruthvens in requital for 
her ministrations to her own progenitress. 

J oyce had always been great friends with Aunt 
Venus since the days when she had been small 
enough to creep through a hole in the garden 
palings with her doll and tea-cups in her apron to 
“play party” on the little peck-measure turned 
bottom upward beside the cabin hearth, and hearken 
avidly to the old woman’s stories of old slavery days, 
of which Joyce herself had no recollection. 

Joyce found the old woman alone, her guardian 
having temporarily betaken herself to the house 
kitchen for a dish of gossip with the cook, and a 
customary bucket of buttermilk. The fire was 
bright and the cabin neat, as was the misnomered 
old crone herself, who sat in a big wooden arm-chair 
in the ingle-nook, with a white cotton cap on her 
head with a flapping border which set off the black- 
ness of her countenance as a frilled petticoat sets off 
the ebony polish of a slipper. She had had her 
dinner and post-meridian pipe, and so was in fine 
conversational trim when Joyce, after the usual 
salutations and inquiries, seated herself in the split- 
bottomed rocking-chair opposite. After a discursive 
preamble, the young lady headed the talk into the 
past and recalled to the mind of her hostess having 
met, a great many years before in this very cabin, a 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 183 

tall yellow woman, who had made an impression on 
her. 

“ I remember her because she had such a curious 
mouth,” Joyce explained. “ Her gums looked as if 
they had been bruised — all purple and mottled. 
What made her that way, Aunt Venus ?” 

“ Lord, honey! Dat’s de way she was born,” the 
old woman responded. “ She was one ‘ blue-gum ’ 
nigger, she was. In Africy, whar we-all come from, 
dat’s de sign o’ king blood I been hear folks say. 
De royal nations, dey have blue gums an’ dat’s de 
way dey gits power — out’n deir own moufs. Back 
yonder in slavery times dar was two or three dem 
sort o’ people ’bout here — ’cendants of dem whar was 
fetched over. Dat ’ooman you see’d was one, an’ 
her uncle was ’nother. Prudence — dat’s what her 
name was — she b’long’st to dem Hatchets whar 
lived t’other side o’ Winock befo’ de War, an’ en- 
durin’ of it, an’ moved away to Richmond sence. 
We-all owned her uncle fur awhile.” 

“ I don’t seem to remember him,” Joyce observed. 
“ What was his name ?” 

The old woman chuckled. 

“ Inco’se you don’t, honey! You fust opened yo’ 
eyes dis side de Kingdom endurin’ of de War, you 
’member. An’ yer grandpa he got shet o’ Wolfe 
some fifteen or twenty years afore yo’ pa was mar- 
ried. Wolfe, he war named arter some gin’el or 
’nother, I’ve hearn tell, didn’t natu’ally belong to de 
plantation nohow. Ole Mars’r took him in fur a 
mighty sorry debt — 'twas jus’ Wolfe, or nothin’. 
He got shet o’ him arter ’while.” 


184 




“What did he look like ?” 

The young lady’s tone was interested. 

“ Prudence favored him some, bein’ his niece. But 
he was lighter complected ’en she was — had mo’ 
white blood in him. Wolfe had pewter- colored eyes 
too, an’ Prudence’s was black. He was a middlin’ 
smart hand, Wolfe was — a stone-mason, an’ capable, 
whenst he got ready to be. He laid off dese here 
rock fences ’pon de place an’ holped to put up most 
of ’em, gate-pos’es an’ all.” 

“If he was such a valuable man why did grand- 
father part with him, Aunt Venus ? Do you know ?” 

Joyce put her question with intention. 

Venus hesitated. 

“ Wolfe wanted to own hisse’f,” she admitted, after 
a moment. ‘An’ ‘blue-gums’ is danger’us any- 
how. Folks is ’feared on ’em, an’ when dey is mean 
an’ interruptions dar ain’t no tellin’ how interrup- 
tions dey kin be. Some ‘ blue-gums ’ is natu’ally 
meaner ’n others, an’ Wolfe he was de meanest one 
ever I seed. Alius a fuss an’ a fracus ’pon de place 
whar he was all de time. De overseer even was 
’feared o’ him same as we-all was. Ole Mars’r was 
mighty well satisfied to git shet o’ Wolfe at las’, 
smart as he was.” 

“ What made you afraid of him ?” 

“ His mouf, honey! Ain’t you never hearn ’bout 
dat ? ‘ Blue-gums ’ is p’isen — rank p’isen! Deir bite 
kin kill folks de same as rattle-snake’s do, or dry-lan’ 
moccasin’s in blind time. Wolfe know’d dat we-all 
know’d he was p’isen an’ he jus’ natu’ally kep’ de 
plantation stirred up from en’ to en’, all de time.” 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 


185 


“ Did he ever bite anybody ?” 

“ Not to git it proved ’pon him, he didn’t,” the old 
woman declared acidly. “He was too cunnin’ for 
dat. Two chil’en died mighty cur ’ns do an’ nobody 
couldn’t tell what ailed ’em — ole Miss, nor de doctor, 
no nobody. De doctor was plumb bothered kase he 
’low’d dat ef dar’d been mad dogs gwine ’round he’d 
a thought dem chil’en died o’ ’phobia. Dar mam- 
my s an’ de balance of us reckoned dat Wolfe had 
bit ’em, or spit on ’em, or somethin’, but we was 
’fear’d to say so.” 

Joyce shuddered. “Was there no sign on them 
anywhere?” she questioned pitifully. “No way of 
telling ?” 

The old woman shut her lips together over her 
toothless gums, and nodded her head solemnly. 

“ We-all s’arched de pore little bodies arter de 
bref was gone,” she admitted slowly. “An’ we 
foun % what we looked for j but we was ’fear’d to tell.” 

“You ought to have told,” Joyce declared posi- 
tively. “It was your duty to have gone straight to 
my grandfather and told him all you suspected.” 

“ Dat wouldn’t er been no use,” was the instant 
counter declaration. “Heap o’ white folks don’t 
b’l’eve in nigger say-so bekase niggers is mostly 
ig’n’ant o’ things whar dey know. Dey hardly ever 
study out dat niggers, bein’ a dif’ent sort o’ nation, 
may be ’quainted wid things dey don't know. Ef ole 
Mars’r had been liable to b’l’eve we-all enouf to have 
Wolfe took out an’ shot like er mad-dog, so well an’ 
so good. But ef he’d jus’ b’l’eved we-all enouf to 
have Wolfe whipped, dat would’r made things wus- 




1 86 

ser. Wolfe would’r turned in an’ chaw’d right an’ 
lef’ befo’ anybody could’r stopped him.” 

Joyce was fain to admit the force of the reasoning. 
All this barbarism revolted, and at the same time 
had a horrible fascination for her. Half -sick, yet 
morbidly curious, she inquired if the “blue-gum” 
had done any more harm upon the plantation. He 
had bitten a mule, the old woman informed her, and 
forthwith described the scene with relish. 

“ ’Twas our ole white Judy muel,” she related earn- 
estly. “ An’ she war a middlin’ good muel in dry wea- 
ther, an’ on feilds whar ’twan’t no water. She war 
foaled in May, an’ couldn’t help herse’f, I reckon, 
but no matter how nor why, in harness or out, 
under de saddle, or under de meal -bag, whenst Judy 
got hoof in runnin’ water down she’d lay right in it, 
an’ wallow an’ squeal an’ kick her heels up. ’Twar 
p’isen aggervatin’, an’ the overseer used to sw’ar he’d 
git ole Mars’r to sell her ev’ry time she done it. 
But she wara good muel, ’ceptin’ dat one meanness, 
an’ we-all was used to her an’ know’d how to make 
allowance. Soon arter Wolfe come to de plantation, 
befo’ we-all got a notion of de sort o’ creeter he was, 
some o’ de boys was fallowin’ for wheat in de big 
home meadow-feild. We was pushed to git done, 
so ’stead o’ takin’ de teams back to de stable at 
twelve o’clock, de overseer tole de boys jus’ to on- 
hitch one muel an’ send up for truck to de house, 
an’ feed in de field. Wolfe was de man ’p’inted to 
go, an’ he happened to be plowin’ Judy. Jus’ for a 
frolic dem boys wouldn’t say nothin’ ’tall to him 
’bout’n ole Judy’s trick, knowin’ he’d have to cross 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 187 

de big creek on his way to de stable and lookin’ to 
have a good laugh. 

“ Dar’s a place in de feild, as you mind, honey, 
whar you kin git a mighty good view of de fordin’ 
place, an’ all dem boys draw’d together dar to have 
thar fun. Well, Judy she trotted mighty nimble — 
lippety-click, same as a rabbit, twell she got to de run- 
nin’ water. She know’d she had to cross it an’ look 
like she ’joiced, bekase de minute her hoofs got wet 
right good she squealed out, like she’s happy with l 
religion, an’ down she laid, an’ rolled clean over. 
Wolfe he was throw’d off’n her in de fu’st double 
an’ got ducked, heels an’ crown, an’ dem boys in de 
feild jus’ holler’d ! Ole Judy look so funny — an’ 
Wolfe too. 

“ Dey quit laughin’ in a minute tho’, for Wolfe he 
scrambled up to his feet an’ jerked ole Judy to her’n 
an’ whirled in on her an’ bit her twice, once on de 
nake an’ once on' de shoulder. Den de boys ’mem- 
bered dat Wolfe was a ‘blue-gum’ an’ was skeer’d 
nigh to de’f, knowin’ what was liable to happen. An’ 
sure enouf befo’ ’long dat muel was a sight to see. 
She war all swollen up an’ had lumps about under 
her skin, an’ suffered ! ’Twar plumb pitiful to see 
an’ hear how dat pore critter did suffer. She’d keep 
still fur awhile, shakin’ all over like she was in a fit, 
an’ den she’d squeal an’ holler like she’d go plumb 
destracted wid pain. Ole Mars’r an’ de overseer 
worked over her out’n de horse-doctor book, wid 
drenches an’ what-not, but dey couldn’t do nothin’ 
’tall to ease her, an’ arter while she got so bad off 
dat ole Mars’r just draw’d his pistol an’ shot her. 


i88 


— ? — 


He couldn’t b’ar to see a pore dumb creeter suffer 
so. Wolfe took’n’ tole Mars’r that he tu’ned Judy 
loose to graze while de men-folks was eatin’ dinper 
an’ he reckoned a rattlesnake must’r struck her. 
An’ we-all let it stand at dat, bekase we was ’fear’d 
o’ Wolfe bitin’ some more o’ we-all.” 

The old woman reached down into a basket of 
chips and kindling-wood which stood beside her 
chair and replenished the fire. Outside the March 
sunshine lay on the earth and the sap was beginning 
faintly to stir in root and fibre; but old blood moves 
sluggishly and needs to be comforted. Joyce moved 
her chair backward, out of range of the heat, and 
watched the flames crinkle and curl around the 
fresh fuel. Her imagination was at work construct- 
ing pictures, demolishing them, and substituting 
others still more strange and barbarous. What 
matter whether this thing were scientific verity or 
not so long as people believed in it, and through 
that belief admitted it to potentiality ? She believed 
in it herself, and her very soul sickened and shud- 
dered at thought of her lover struggling for life with 
a human viper. Was not this very story she had 
been listening to proof ? Had the mule ever heard 
stories of the virulence of a “ blue-gum’s ” bite ? 
And yet from the effects of that bite the animal 
had died. Here was no case of excited imagination 
reflecting itself on corporeal substance, but of such 
substance affected through its own medium — poison 
in the body, not on the mind, had been the death- 
cause here. Superstition could not have affected 
the physical tissues of a mule. 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 


189 

“ What became of this Wolfe, Aunt Venus?” she 
questioned after a moment, feeling vindictively that 
the creature had been rightly named. 

“ He was so hard to git along wid, honey,” the old 
crone responded, “ dat Mars’r got wore plumb out 
wid him. He tried to sell him ’bout in de neighbor- 
hood, but didn’t nobody want him ’ceptin’ ’twas his- 
se’f. Mars’r never would sell none o’ his folks to 
traders, like so many done, bekase he was ’fear’d 
dey wouldn’t git treated right; so what to do wid 
Wolfe he didn’t know. Dat ‘ blue-gum ’ was de 
smartes’ sort o’ nigger, like I tole you, an’ mighty 
nigh white, to look at, an’ he argufied an’ ’suaded 
wid Mars’r twell Mars’r ’greed to sell him to hisse’f. 
Arter he got dat fixed de way he wanted, he sobered 
down real ste’ddy an’ worked at his trade an’ got 
money yuther ways an’ bought an’ paid for hisse’f 
inside o’ three ye’r. Den Mars’r had de freedom 
papers made out all regular, an’ Wolfe jobbed about 
an’ prospered mighty well. He was a good-lookin’ 
man wid his mouf shut, an’ arter ’while a sorry po’ 
white ’ooman took up wid him. Dey couldn’t git 
married bekase dar was a law agin it, but dey lived 
together right peacable, an’ Wolfe quit interruptin’ 
folks more’n was his natur’. Dey had two chiln 
whar was in-about white, to look at, an’ whenst de 
youngest one, de little gal, was five ye’r old, her 
daddy got hisse’f killed blastin’ in a stone quarry, 
an’, all his own color was glad of it. Arter Wolfe 
was buried de ’ooman sold out what truck she had 
an’ took her chil’n an’ moved clean away frum 
here.” 


190 




J oyce rose to go. It was almost time for Dr. Hat- 
ton’s visit now, and she knew that her sister needed 
her. As she turned to leave the cabin, after making 
parting salutations, she put a concluding question. 
Had the ex-slave’s children blue-gums also ? 

Aunt Venus thought that one of them had — the 
boy. There had been several years between the 
children, and Wolfe junior had been a sizable chap 
when taken from the neighborhood. The little girl 
had been uncommonly pretty, as mixed children 
frequently are. She had light hair and gray eyes, 
like her mother. What had become of the family, 
the old woman had never heard. It had all hap- 
pened many years ago, before Joyce’s father had left 
college. 

The young lady returned to the house thinking 
very hard. And the first chance she got poured the 
story into her sister-in-law’s ear, by whom, in turn, 
it was repeated to Ruthven, who felt himself moved 
to curiosity sufficient to make him cast a backward 
glance over the plantation books as kept during his 
grandfather’s time. Under a certain date, pretty 
early in the century, he found an entry which spoke 
of the acquisition by the elder Ruthven , of “ an 
able-bodied male mulatto ” as indemnity for debt. 
There was a full description of the man appended, 
as was usual in those days of human chattelship. 
He was catalogued as “a 1 blue-gum ’ negro, very 
light in complexion; answered to the name of 
Wolfe.” 

The senior Ruthven had been a very systematic • 
man, and a bit further on was an entry which read: 


HOW JOYCE TAKES IT. 


191 

“ My mulatto boy Wolfe, very capable and satis- 
factory as a work-hand, but quarrelsome in the 
quarters and unpopular with the other negroes. 
Seems an underhand, bad-natured fellow. Must 
keep my eye on him.” After that there was little 
mention of Wolfe, save in the work entries, until 
the detailed description of the singular loss of “ my 
white mule Judy,” all of whose symptoms, and the 
treatment employed, was duly set forth, with the 
appendix, “Wolfe and the other negroes maintain 
that the brute was snake-bitten; but, to me, the case 
presented difference. The poison charge seemed 
heavier, and there were marks on her neck and 
shoulder a snake never made. Have given orders 
that the other mules be watched, and also the curs 
about the plantation. The marks were those of 
teeth.” 

Sometime later came the entry of the agreement 
of sale between master and man, with the regularly 
recurring entries of payments made, until the affair 
culminated in the declaration: “ I this day signed 
manumission papers for my yellow boy Wolfe, who 
will henceforth go under the name of Wolfe Jud- 
son.” 

There was, however, in the farm records no men- 
tion of the popular superstition connected with 
“blue-gums.” 


192 


CHAPTER XIX. 

TUCKAHOE “ CO’TE-HOUSE.” 

The village of Tarrytown, which attains full dig- 
nity of nomenclature only on maps where a tiny 
black dot represents the county-seat of Tuckahoe, 
nestles itself in a long funnel-shaped valley, which 
opens out handsomely and to considerable extent. 
On either side the vanguard of foot-hills uprear 
themselves, range beyond range, shading wondrously 
in beauty from purple to amethyst, from amethyst 
to blue, until, in far away spaces, mountain peaks 
blend softly with clouds and appear to lose identity 
in distance. 

Through the country-side the place is simply des- 
ignated the “ Co’te-House but is held to be a 
metropolis of importance to the commonwealth. 
Its houses, including stables, hen-houses and negro 
cabins, foot up to about four hundred, and its popu- 
lation, in the recent census, would have showed 
valuable increase and set itself off handsomely had 
not the census-taker been an evil-minded man, given 
over utterly to lying. 

A pretty place is the Court-House village, bowery 
and sweet-smelling in the gentler seasons of the 
year, for trees abound, and so do old-fashioned 
gardens, rich in garniture of boxwood, sprucely 


TUCK A HOE “ CO' T E- HO USE. 


193 


trimmed, in hedges of Scotch broom, and lilacs, 
white and purple; rich also in “snow-ball” bushes, 
and tangles of calycanthus, known to the common- 
ality as “shrubs” and, erroneously, supposed to 
thrive only about houses wherein the women wear 
the breeches. And of all seasons, the place is pret- 
tiest in April, for then lilies of the valley, clove 
pinks and lilacs are a-bloom, making the gardens all 
like daughters of the king, full of comeliness with- 
in and of goodly savor. Then, too, the yards are 
newly swept, and show. all velvety green, and the 
long rows of locust trees, which shadow all the lane- 
like streets, have shaken out their snowy tassels in 
great number, holding them aloft, like lovely cen- 
sors, whose rich perfume is guerdon for the breeze. 

The court-house itself, constructed of brick and 
roofed with native shingles, is a building of uncom- 
promising squareness, intended doubtless to be 
typical of the justice administered within. It stands 
on an elevation near the center of the village, and is 
surrounded by an extensive lawn of soft velvety turf, 
handsomely studded with forest trees. Behind the 
court-house is the jail, a long, low structure of stone, 
whitewashed, and almost windowless. And to one 
side, in a detached building, is the office of the 
county-clerk, an official held in high esteem in ante- 
bellum days, but whose dignity has sadly lapsed 
under stress of modern innovations. 

The broad brick wall surrounding the green 
formed the favorite lounging place of juvenile citi- 
zens, of both colors, when court was in session, for it 
gave coigne of vantage for over-sight of the extern- 


i 9 4 




pore booths erected with empty barrels and bits of 
board by the negro venders of fried chicken, soda 
biscuit, pies, persimmon beer, and the thick, glazed, 
slippery looking ginger-bread peculiar to court- 
house vicinities. The wall overlooked also the 
open lot whereon horse trading was done and 
sheriff sales held, in intervals when the public mind 
needed distraction from the cares of state, so that 
it was deservedly popular. 

The semi-annual sessions of Circuit Court were 
great occasions in the village, before which the 
monthly convening of County Court paled into 
utter insignificance. The village put on its bravest 
front, the shop-keepers set out such store as they 
possessed of cigars and smoking tobacco, the women 
washed windows and hung fresh curtains, and the 
maidens got out their braveries; for, who knew, there 
might be legal strangers to impress, and the local 
bar could always be counted on to come out strong. 
About the place, mingling in autumn with the per- 
fume of ripening fruit, and in spring with that of 
flowers, would steal rich odors of cooking, smell of 
roasting joints and poultry, simmering fruit and 
spices, warm browning of cakes in the oven, and all 
such goodly savors, for these were seasons of hospi- 
tality, and every household must make itself ready 
for guests, both stranger and local. 

Circuit Court weeks were big times, too, for the 
old “ Buck-horn Tavern,” as the hostlery of the 
village had been called since the memory of man 
runneth not to the contrary. This was a rambling 
frame structure, said to ante-date, by many years, 


TUCK A HOE “ CO'TE-HOUSE" 


r 95 


the court-house, with which it stood cheek by jowl, 
so to speak. It was furnished with deep verandas 
on every side, whereon were split-bottom chairs in 
variety, some with rockers and some without, but 
all sufficiently comfortable to insure occupation 
in sunny weather. Above the lintel was a huge 
branching pair of antlers, trophy of a stag of ten, 
and used time out of mind as the cognizance of the 
house. There was a tale about the shooting of that 
buck that would have done credit to Munchausen, 
but the villagers, to a man, loyally upheld it, while 
in the speech of the proprietor of the place it was 
a very bulwark of public popularity. 

Seated on the portion of the tavern veranda 
which overlooked the village street was a group of 
mountaineers in various attitudes indicative of re- 
laxation and comfort. They had come down from 
the heights to be present at the trial of Deane 
Rutherford for ' the killing of Wolfe Ranke, and 
were mightily excited thereover. The release of 
Jim Trotter had spread the story abroad, and 
Deane’s old neighborhood could not contain itself 
for interest, or command language sufficient for the 
requirements of comment and speculation. 

Every incident of Deane’s career that was known 
to them, from the cutting of his first tooth onward, 
was exhaustively canvassed, and it was really aston- 
ishing the impression which trivialities connected 
with him appeared to have made. Instances of 
violence of temper were narrated of his grandfather 
and his father, as well as of the young fellow him- 
self, and people would remind each other of how 


196 




many fights Deane senior had had, and of how many 
times Sam had knocked a man down, before they 
brought the conversation around to this present 
Deane and his remembered escapades. The Ruther- 
fords had always been “ a servidgerous nation, fiery 
in thar tempers and flashy with thar fists,” accord- 
ing to the popular dictum. Nor were they hardly 
judged for it, such peculiarities being thoroughly 
in sympathy with the civilization around them. 

The family had been well liked in the district, 
moreover, and was connected by marriage with a 
good many other families in it, although not very 
closely in its present representative. Deane’s father, 
in special, had been immensely popular, partly be- 
cause of social and other gifts, partly because of ties 
of blood, which in the South are acknowledged to 
the uttermost ramification of remoteness, but mostly 
because of his musical ability. Sam Rutherford and 
his “old lady ” were still sorely missed in their old 
haunts, and Jim Trotter and his banjo could in no 
wise supply their place. 

In addition to this Deane had been liked himself, 
and despite his infirmities of temper had made for 
himself the reputation of being a “ middlin’ clever, 
straight-for’red fellow, ’thout’n no meanness, nor 
low-lived crookedness in him, no more’n his daddy 
had.” Public opinion would have held Sam Ruther- 
ford’s boy entirely justified in his deed, and have set 
strongly in his favor but for one, to them, hideous 
fact connected with the affair — to wit, the burning 
of the body. It is a curious commentary on human 
nature where the line will be drawn. These moun- 


TUCKAHOE “ CO' TE-HO USE.” 


197 


taineers cared no more for the slaughter of the man 
than if he had been a worm stepped on, and yet 
they revolted from and resented the cremation of 
his insensate remains. It seemed to them not only 
an unfair advantage to take of that which was de- 
fenseless, but an evidence of cowardice as well. 
Their code required that a man should stand up 
bodily for that which he had done and be pre- 
pared to justify it with thews and sinews if need 
were. 

Any other course was considered derogatory to his 
manhood. And, like their betters, they were all the 
more dogged in maintaining a standard in that, in 
this instance, it could by no possibility be even 
covertly applied to themselves. 

Simon Trueheart, the storekeeper, who had not 
scrupled to appropriate the residue of Ranke’s 
effects, at his own price, in discharge of a debt on 
which his rate of interest was already something 
like a hundred per cent, grew quite sentimental 
over the “blue-gum’s” funeral pyre. 

“ Look-like Deane mout’r buried him,” Simon 
averred, dumping a couple of pounds of sugar into 
the scales, and removing them before the balance 
settled, discoursing to his customer craftily the 
while. “ Look-like he might have tole folks out 
squar’ an’ orderly, an’ done his jewty by one he war 
hinderin’ frum doin’ a good part by hisse’f. That 
thar pore lonesome creeter war ^titled to a fun’al, 
an’ a grave whar fit him, if he war ^titled to any- 
thing. Ranke war’n’t, you may say, a pop’lar man 
in life, nor over an’ above agreeable to most folks, 


198 




but his due six-foot o' ground war his’n, and he 
never got it.” 

“ No, he didn’t,” acquiesced the customer, too 
much interested to observe that he was getting 
short-weight. “ Nor nothin’ like it. He jus’ got a 
hole, belike, no bigger’n would do to set out an 
apple-tree in. An’ that was too big fur what was 
left o’ him.” 

The storekeeper thumped the bundle down on 
the counter and opened his cash-drawer, in search 
of change. 

“ Killin’ have got to be done once in awhile,” he 
declared. “ An’ thar’s some situations thar ain’t no 
Other way out of. I ain’t faultin’ Deane for slaugh- 
terin’ Wolfe Ranke if so be he war obleeged to. All 
that will come out at his trial an’ I’ll hold back 
jedgment thar till I git ther evidence. Ranke could 
be a nasty cuss an’ plumb afcspisable whenst he got 
ready. I ain’t disputin’ that. Nor I ain’t disputin’ 
t’other fellow’s right to do ther slaughterin’. What 
goes agin me air takin’ advantage arter a man’s 
dead. Whilst both air livin’ it air nip an’ tuck, man 
agin man, an’ ther best wins; but arter one of ’em 
air dead a?i helpless ’tis dif’ent.” 

The storekeeper’s attitude was irreproachable, 
despite the solid advantage accruing from his own 
posthumous settlement with Ranke. He felt it so. 
And also that he was voicing the sentiments of the 
community. 

“Yes, sirree!” he repeated, emphatically. “ It air 
mighty dif’ent. A man natu’ally looks to be laid 
out straight an’ orderly with all whar he fetched 


TUCKAHOE “ CO’ T E-HOUSE." 


199 


into ther world, an’ a leetle more added to it, boxed 
up conformable in his coffin. An’ he looks to have 
a neighborly buryin’, an’ to be planted, side an’ side, 
with folks whar knows him, so whenst gettin’-up 
time comes at Jedgment Day he may rise decent 
an’ in comp’ny. A man have a right to look for 
this, an’ he do look for it.” 

Again the customer endorsed the statement with 
acclamation. 

“That’s so!’ he asserted. “That cert’n’y is so. 
A man natu’ally do object to bein' scorched up to a 
crisp an’ made so little of that folks ain’t got ther 
heart to fit him out with a full-sized grave. He 
have a right to object with Jedgment Day ahead to 
look out for, an’ ther surety that all ther neighbors, 
men an ’ wimmen, will be thar too, lookin' an’ 
nudgin’, an’ whisperin’ ’bout ther show this one 
makes an’ t’other one. What sort o’ figger, does 
you reckon, them thar pore harf-burnded bones will 
make twistin' out’n that thar leetle, scrougeous hole 
in ther clearin’, higgledy-piggledy, every-which-er- 
way, whenst ole Gab ’el blows ther horn fur dead 
folks to git up an’ travel ? It air scan’elous* And 
Ranke was a full-grow’d, able-bodied man, ef he 
was a ‘ blue-gum.’ Deane didn’t have no business 
takin’ sich a mean advantage.” 

The unsightliness of the suggestion gave it weight 
and adhesive, power, and the feeling grew that the 
defunct “ blue-gum ” had been treated with less than 
human consideration. The idea that Ranke's ability 
to make a comely showing for all eternity had been 
gratuitously interfered with, aroused commiseration 


200 




for him. Through much discussion of the situation 
the public attitude toward Deane grew not exactly 
adverse, but cold and critical. 

The carping spirit was encouraged by Jim Trotter, 
who, indeed, went out of his way to speak against 
Deane. Instead of being grateful for his own de- 
liverance and appreciative of the fact that the young 
fellow had set himself to mend matters the instant 
he became aware that they required it, Trotter 
chose to consider himself a gravely abused man, 
whose situation was minus a palliating circum- 
stance. He had endured hardship and opprobrium; 
he had been heinously detained from business and 
family for the space of many moons; he had suf- 
fered loss and inconvenience, in body and mind, 
solely and absolutely through Deane Rutherford’s 
fault. This was the attitude he assumed, and he 
clove to it, feeling sore and vindictive and giving 
his feelings air in season and out. There was, in 
his estimation, no name too censorious to be applied 
to Deane, and no reprobation too severe to be meted 
out to him. When reminded that if the young man 
had elected to remain silent his — Trotter’s — tight 
place might have proven difficult to wiggle out of, 
he would refuse to regard the matter from this 
stand-point at all, alleging as counter-quit that 

thar wouldn't never have been no tight place for 
nobody, but for Deane Rutherford’s cussedness an’ 
mean, interruptions temper.” 

And when it was additionally pointed out that not 
Deane s temper, but that of Miriam Watts was re- 
sponsible for “sickin’ the law-dogs” on him , all 


TUCKAHOE “ CO' T E-HOUSE. 


201 


that would be elicited would be a contemptuous, 
“shucks!” and the quite gratuitous insistence that 
Miriam was a woman, and that “ wimmin-folks 
war ’n’t ’sponsible, n’other war’n’t b’ilt to be.” 

Indeed Trotter’s clemency toward the immediate 
agent in his incarceration, in contrast with his 
venom against its remoter cause, was calculated to 
excite surprise. So far from falling upon his malev- 
olent neighbor, beak and claw, so to speak, and 
verbally fending her, Trotter appeared to have 
little, or nothing, to say on that part of the subject, 
and actually to bear, or at all events to express, no 
malice whatever. The bucolic code by no means 
inculcates the turning of the other cheek to the 
smiter, so that Trotter’s treatment of his calumni- 
ator aroused considerable comment, which was in- 
creased when it was discovered that he had actually 
gone out of his way to accommodate the woman 
several times since his liberation. Trotter was a 
“perfessor o’ religion” it was true, but primitive 
theology retains much of its pristine ferocity, and 
deals vastly more with cursing and denunciation 
than with peace and loving-kindness. None dreamed 
therefore of setting down Trotter’s magnanimity to 
a change of heart. Their speculations anent it were 
purely mundane. 

A small contingent, composed of fellows like Nat 
and ’Bijah, who had been his playmates, and headed 
by the blacksmith, stood squarely by Deane, ex- 
plaining the burning on a natural and common- 
sense hypothesis, and treating with scorn all insinu- 
ations in his disfavor. The impression Deane had 


202 




•made on his old friends during their recent visit to 
Winock held firm and was communicated, as far as 
possible. A little genuine friendliness was proving, 
as it usually does, bread cast upon the waters, and 
three men among his old associates were standing 
cheerily by ready to do Deane yeoman service. 
They kept their mouths from over-much discourse 
and their eyes and ears open, having plans of their 
own to put into effect, and large confidence in them- 
selves as factors. 

They came early down to the “Co’te-House ” and 
established themselves within easy reach of every- 
body, usually occupying chairs on the veranda of the 
Buck-horn Tavern when court was not in session. 

With them also had come down the iconoclast, 
already mentioned, a fellow named Terry Smoot, 
who had attached himself to the party for company 
more than anything else, and who had, just now, a 
bee in his bonnet, the buzzing of which was like to 
drive all hands entirely distracted. 

As they sat at ease, over-looking the court-house 
green, Smoot had his idea out, like a Juny-bug tied 
by the leg with a bit of string, and was exercising 
it. Around the corner from them, in an arm-chair 
with his heels on the balustrade, sat a gentleman 
smoking. He was a stranger to the mountaineers 
and they paid no attention to him. 

“ No, sir,” Smoot asserted dogmatically. “ T’ain’t 
never been proved on Wolfe — not nigger blood 
haven’t. An’ folks ain’t got no right to fasten such 
a thing as that on a man ’thout’n proof, an’ good 
proof too. Them lawyer chaps have been trackin’ 


TUCKAHOE “ CO' TE- HO USE." 


203 


it, huntin’ up a fam’ly fur Ranke, better ’n three 
months now, an’ they don’t look to have made much 
headway at it. Leastways that fellow Sinclair ain’t, 
him that had Jim Trotter’s case, workin’ it up. 
Middlin’ smart chap too, he is, folks say about here.” 

“ He ain’t smart like Meredith,” Nat Clarke 
hastened to assert, seeking to break cover in a new 
direction and so escape from that bane of listeners, 
which the merriest, as well as the wisest of his race, 
aptly characterizes as “ damnable iteration.” 

“ No, he ain’t,” promptly supplemented the black- 
smith. “ He’s a likely colt enough, Sinclair is, an’ 
will pull well for off-horse; but Deane’s head 
was level whenst he got old man Trave in the lead. 
I sesso soon as I hearn his team named over. 
Wonder how he done it ? Meredith ain’t show’d up 
in a criminal case for better’n ten ye’r. It’s ten ye’r 
sence Woodchuck Bailey was jailed ’long o’ carryin’ 
on his granddad’s feud, an’ shootin’ Bill Lennox, 
ain’t it ? Meredith defended Woodchuck in co’te 
an’ got him off, an’ then whirled in on him outside 
an’ gin him such a tongue-lashin’ ’bout’n onnaybor- 
liness that Woodchuck all but boo-hooed whar he 
stood.” 

“ Throw’d his shootin’-iron in ther river I’ve hearn 
tell,” chuckled Nat Clarke. “ An’ fetched an’ carried 
for Bill’s widow same as he done for his own folks, 
plumb twell she got married ag’in.” 

Smoot was not to be toled away from his own 
interest by any such extraneous matter, however. 
He waited calmly for an opening and then thrust it 
upon them again, 


204 


“ Woodchuck was jailed six months afore Wolfe 
Ranke come by his end,” he announced, as though 
the original query had been put to him. “ I mind 
the day the news o’ the shootin’ circled round. Me, 
an’ Jim Trotter, an’ Ranke an’ two or three more 
was settin’ about in Trueheart’s sto’. Ranke sot on 
a barrel by the door, cross-legged. The sun shone 
on him squar’ an’ I took notice o’ his look partic’lar 
bekase of the talk that was always travelin’ 
’bout his color. His skin was as white as what 
mine is.” 

“ That ain’t nothin’,” retorted Nat, glancing sourly 
at the speaker’s sallow and sun-burned visage. 
“ I’ve seed a sight o’ mulatto chil’n an’ gals heap 
whiter ’n you is, Smoot — to look at.” 

“ What in thunder makes Smoot so durned pertic’- 
ler ’bout’n Ranke’s color ?” fretfully demanded 
’Bijah, addressing himself to space. “A body would 
think the ‘blue-gum’ was his kinfolks.” 

“ No, they wouldn’t n’other,” grinned Smoot. 
“Ranke’s eyes war’n’t my color. If kin goes by 
favors, he was closer by you ’en me, ’Bijah. Thar’s 
a monkey for yer jackass.” 

’Bijah’s pewter-colored eyes lowered and he swore 
roundly. The other men laughed and resigned 
themselves to hearing Smoot out. 

“ This here air the p’int I’m aimin’ to make,” that 
worthy proclaimed, with as much zest as if he had 
not done it fifty times already. “ Everybody knows 
that the bite o’ a ‘ blue-gum ’ nigger air rank p’isen. 
So if Wolfe was a nigger as well as a ‘ blue-gum,’ 
an’ him an’ Deane got in a scuffle, an’ Deane kilt him 


T UCKAHOE “ CO' TE-HO USE." 


205 

to keep from gitten hisse’f bit all to pieces, be war 
justified in doin’ it an’ have got a good case.” 

“ I reckon so,” interjected ’Bijah, disagreeably. 
“ Who in thunder do you s’pose would hold thar- 
selves steady an’ let a damned p’isenous ‘ blue-gum ’ 
gnaw on ’em ?” 

Smoot waved the interruption calmly aside and 
proceeded. 

“ Just like I was sayin’. If black-blood air a true 
bill agin Ranke t’other fellow’s case is about made 
out. But if ’tain’t a true bill, or can’t be proved a 
true bill, the whole thing’s quashed, an’ the defense 
will have to come in on another track. If Ranke was 
a full-blooded white man, then he war’n’t p’isen an’ 
his bite wouldn’t kill no more’n yours or mine. In 
fact he wouldn’t bite in a scuffle at all. He’d be 
above such a doggish trick as that thar.” 

“ Ever see a white man with blue-gums ?” 

The same pertinent query had been put ten years 
• before in almost the same words by the same man. 

Smoot varied his rejoinder. 

“ No; but I ain’t seed all the nations o’ the 
y ’earth, nor you ain’t n’other.” 

“ I’ve seed two of ’em,” the blacksmith retorted 
sharply. “ An’ one’s liable to have blue-gums, an’ 
t’other one ain’t. How do you s’pose now that 
Ranke’s gums got that venomous color if he war’n’t 
born so ?” 

“ Mout’r been bruised.” 

“Mout’r been the devil!” with derisive emphasis. 
“ Whyn’t you reckon he painted ’em up reg’lar for 
pretty, or polished ’em off with lamp black? I 


20 6 




know’d Wolfe Ranke risen twenty ye’r an’ that thar 
color hung on to his gums from * start to finish. 
Never faded, nor never changed. Right good 
holdin’ for a bruise, warn’t it ?” 

The laugh was against the caviler at the popular 
belief this time. 

The gentleman around the corner threw away the 
stump of his cigar, took his boots from the balus- 
trade and rose. From the door of the clerk’s office 
a man with a green bag in his hand was emerging. 
He walked slowly and slouched a trifle forward; 
with his disengaged hand he clasped the opposite 
shoulder, manipulating it with mechanical touches. 
The gentleman on the veranda watched him cross 
the lawn toward the entrance gate and then turned 
to the mountaineers with the inquiry if that were 
not Lawyer Meredith ? 

Receiving an affirmative reply he uttered a hasty 
word of acknowledgment, turned away and ran 
down the veranda steps as though in a hurry. The 
group watched him curiously and a few moments 
later beheld him touch the lawyer lightly on the 
arm, and apparently introduce himself. 


“/ KNO W'D HE WERE P'ISENOUS! 


207 


CHAPTER XX. 

“ 1 know’d he were p’isenous!” 

Court convened on the second Monday in April, 
and all that day and the next was consumed in get- 
ting business on its legs, and in disposing of several 
unimportant cases which stood first on the docket. 
It was Wednesday therefore before the case of the 
Commonwealth vs. Deane Rutherford was called. 

The interest excited by the trial was widespread, 
not only among the people with whom the principals 
in the affair had mostly to do, but among outsiders 
as well. The fact that the case turned on a popular 
superstition, so prevalent in some portions of the 
South as to have been tacitly accepted without any 
attempt at explanation or verification, invested it 
with peculiar interest for the legal profession, and the 
additional fact that the defence was to be conducted 
by Trave Meredith made it seem probable that the 
handling of the evidence and general summing up 
would be noteworthy. Deane’s voluntary sur- 
render and downright acknowledgment, of the deed 
had, of course, shifted his case from the ordinary 
ground of “ guilty or not guilty ” to that of justifica- 
tion. What his counsel would have to do would be 
to divest the deed of criminality by proving beyond 
a peradventure that the killing had been purely in 


208 


self-defence. And in the popular as well as the 
legal estimation, this would have been no difficult 
matter but for the known fact that there had been 
money involved, and the ugliness of that seeming 
destruction of evidence by fire. True, Deane main- 
tained that he had nothing to do with the burning; 
but as yet his simple statement stood unsupported 
by proof, and against it might be set his silence of 
ten years back. 

It was on this point presumably that the prose- 
cution would rest — on this and the fact that Wolfe 
Ranke had passed for a white man, which would of 
course militate against the value of the superstition. 
These two knots were the only ones the case pre- 
sented, but they were accounted tight enough to test 
Meredith’s power of disentanglement. 

From the region round about for a considerable 
radius the people convened, flocking into the village 
in carriages, on horse-back and in ox-wagons. 
Mountaineers came by the dozen, with their fami- 
lies and without, and even the neighboring gentry 
were well represented. The editors of the “ Tucka- 
hoe Enterprise” and the' “Winock Reflector” at- 
tended in person, getting into court by-times, and it 
was known to a few that a slim -built fellow in a 
tweed suit who occupied one of the window-seats 
was no less a person than the representative of a 
Montaubon daily. So much importance quite upset 
the local equilibrium, and the villagers began to 
preen themselves and fondly fancy that the days of 
Court-House supremacy were about to revive. The 
negro women, not in service, bustled about and 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE P'ISENO US! " 


209 


baked cakes and pies, and fried chicken galore, set- 
ting out their box and barrel booths beside the 
court-house wall with lavishness and splendor. And 
the very dogs in the streets, both resident and visit- 
ing, held their noses high and stepped about on 
tip-toe, curling their tails upward with an extra 
flourish. 

It was a warm day and the court-room was full to 
over-flowing, even the benches beside the vestibule 
door, which in general were relegated to colored 
service, being freighted now with curious dames 
and damsels whose household occupations had com- 
pelled them to be late in coming. All the windows 
stood open to their limit, and the judge from his 
bench could see out, across heads, into lovely spaces 
where spring-bedecked branches waved greenly 
against a blue distance, and shadows appeared to 
dance and gambol, with fair witcheries of move- 
ment, over the emerald sward. On the earth lay 
the season’s sunshine, heating it to germination and 
growth, and every vagrant breeze that loitered in at 
the windows, to see what these human atoms might 
be about, came ladened with pilfered sweets. 

Court was opened with the customary preamble, 
during which the restless among the crowd whis- 
pered together, or indulged in ineffectual mesmeric 
passes at predatory wasps sailing through on forays. 
Belated young lawyers scurried into the bar where 
already their legal betters were established, and, 
after a moment, all eyes were turned to the door 
through which the self-arraigned man must enter. 

Deane Rutherford, looking taller, squarer, better 


2 IO 




appointed and more self-possessed than ever, came 
in quietly, accompanied by Mr. Voss as well as by 
the sheriff, and seated himself in the place indicated, 
within easy reach of his counsel. Something in his 
air and appearance impressed the people favorably 
and the looks bent upon him were more interested 
than curious. One of his father’s old intimates 
nudged another with his elbow and whispered that 
“ Sam Rutherford’s boy hadn’t lost the favor by 
bein’ eddicated. He was the very spit-image o’ his 
daddy yet.” And the other, with a vague conscious- 
ness that in the likeness there was difference, re- 
sponded that Deane was “ like his daddy whenst 
Sam had the ‘ old lady ’ agin his cheek, an’ the horse- 
hair was a- talkin’ to the strings;” thus symbolizing 
that this evolution gave the father’s altitude for the 
son’s foundation. 

The case, in due sequence, was called, and after 
less haggling than usual, a jury was impaneled and 
sworn. Deane’s glance rested on the faces of the 
twelve men whose judgment, or prejudices, must in- 
fluence his future with a strange feeling of being 
alien to himself, as it were, and no longer the domi- 
nating factor in his own destiny. Six of the men 
were strangers to him, men who had moved in, or 
boys grown up since the days of his own familiarity 
with the district; three were villagers whose faces 
he seemed vaguely to remember, and the remaining 
three were Toby Blake, the blacksmith, Nathan 
Clarke, and Abijah Wheelwright, who had forborne 
from expressing opinions on the case all along, with 
the deliberate intention of thereby qualifying them- 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE P'ISENO US! ” 


21 I 


selves for jury service. They regarded Deane now 
with unrecognizing stolidity, and an austerity of as- 
pect which was calculated to convey the impression 
that their aloofness from interest in him, or his con- 
cerns, was antipodal. Deane’s own face was corre- 
spondingly impassive, but his heart stirred warmly 
and a comforting feeling generated that he would 
get fair-play in the jury-room. 

The Attorney for the Commonwealth, Abel Tal- 
cott by name, was an elderly man of considerable 
acumen. He was a social friend and professional 
foe of Meredith’s, with whom he consorted to an 
unlimited extent, and generally in the opposition. 
The pair had been, intellectually, pitted against one 
another from boyhood, so that, cheek by jowl, with 
their affection for and honest appreciation of each 
other, had developed the habit of taking different 
views and sturdily maintaining them. The Ranke 
case had interested Talcott very little until the new 
development had brought Trave Meredith into it, 
but since that event he had thrown himself into it 
with vigor. Many years had passed since he and 
Trave had 'measured rapiers in open court, and he 
wasxninded to see what trick of fence remained to 
them both. 

The case for the prosecution was opened up ably, 
Talcott knowing the value of first impressions. He 
set forth the facts concisely, as the prosecution 
viewed them, and then set himself to establish them 
one by one. First he took up Ranke, and showed 
them a lonely recluse, solitary in habit, unsocial in 
disposition, with no tender ties of kinship among 


his neighbors, it was true, but harmless in intention 
and act, a respectable law-abiding citizen, living out 
his life on his own estate and in accordance with his 
own scheme, paying his way as an honest man 
should, asking no favors, and interfering with no 
one. Emphatically a man who was entitled to live 
as long as nature would permit and to die peacefully 
in his bed when his time came. This had not been, 
however, for the man had been stricken down and 
butchered on his own hearthstone. 

But before he came to that part of the affair, Tal- 
cott averred, he wished to show the Court a few 
facts about the antecedence of the murdered man 
with which his old neighborhood appeared unfamil- 
iar. In the first place nobody seemed to know posi- 
tively where Ranke had come from. It was known 
that, in company with his father, during the period 
when both men were in the guerrilla service of the 
Confederacy, he had been seen in the Tuckahoe 
neighborhood. The woods, and especially the 
mountain regions bordering on West Virginia and 
Tennessee, had been full of bushwhackers in those 
days, so that the coming and going of the Rankes, 
father and son, had excited no special comment. 
Almost immediately after the close of the War, the 
son, Wolfe Ranke, had returned alone to Tuckahoe 
Mountain, bought a small tract of land and settled. 
Since that time the neighbors could account for the 
man themselves, and it was the period which ante- 
dated it which the lawyer proposed to touch on. 

A mischievous idea in connection with the de- 
ceased had permeated the neighborhood and worked 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE FISENOUS !" 


213 


ill to him. This idea — that Ranke was of mixed 
blood — was largely responsible for the isolation of 
his life, and for his unpopularity among his associ- 
ates. Upon examination, the idea proved to be 
based solely upon the existence of a natural defect, 
or blemish, in the dead man’s personal appearance, 
and a superstition connected in the public mind 
therewith. How Ranke came to have discolored 
gums, he, Talcott, not being omniscient, was not pre- 
pared to say, but that he was a full-blooded white 
man he felt confident of proving. 

Then he put on the witness-stand a respectable- 
looking white man who gave his name as Mathew 
Warner, and claimed to be from a small village 
called Ludlow, across the border in North Carolina. 
He was a carpenter by trade and had lived in Lud- 
low all his life. 

This man testified that Tom Ranke, father of 
Wolfe, had been born and raised also in his village. 
That there were a good many of the name about 
that place and that, while there were good and bad 
among them in the usual proportion, none had ever 
been accused of lawfully mixing the breed. Indeed 
such a thing would be impossible under the regula- 
tions of the State. Tom Ranke had been a mid- 
dling sort of man, neither conspicuously thrifty nor 
the reverse. He had married the daughter, and 
only living child, of a white woman, also a resident 
of Ludlow, and his wife had died when their son 
Wolfe was a lad. There had been other children, 
but none had lived to grow up except Wolfe; for 
some reason they appeared to have been sickly. 


214 


Here the defense, by courtesy, interrupted to in- 
quire the maiden name of Tom Ranke’s wife, and 
whether her family had also been residents of the 
village for any length of time. And through the 
replies the Court learned that Ranke had met the 
young woman in Tennessee some months previous 
to their removal to Ludlow, and had fallen in love 
with her. It had been through Tom’s influence 
that they had come. The name was Judson, and 
the elder woman was a widow, or claimed to be. 

Was there any doubt of the widow Judson’s color? 

None whatever, the witness positively asserted. 
Mrs. Judson had been a fair woman with straight 
blond hair and gray eyes. Her daughter had light 
eyes also, but her hair had been curly and brown. 
Tom Ranke had black eyes and hair. The Rankes, 
as a family, in coloring were generally dark. 

Did the witness know from what town, or county, 
in Tennessee the Judsons had migrated ? 

Certainly. They had come from Johnson County. 
The witness had heard it scores of times. Mrs. 
Judson was a still-mouthed woman and had seen 
trouble. She talked very little about her past, but 
was feeling and neighborly. There was an impres- 
sion that she had been badly treated in some way, 
but whether by her dead husband, or her own family, 
or his, was not clearly defined. She had had another 
child, a son; but had lost him. She talked about 
the boy a good deal, and seemed to have set store 
by him. It was to please her that Melissa Ranke 
had named her first-born son Wolfe. It had been 
her father’s name and her brother’s. 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE P'ISENOUS !” 


2I 5 


One other question the defence put and then let 
the witness for the prosecution off for that time. 
Had Mrs. Tom Ranke discolored gums like her son ? 

No. Mrs. Tom Ranke’s gums had been most 
healthily red, and her teeth had been regular and 
as white as a cherry blossom. She had been an un- 
commonly likely woman, Tom’s wife had, and as 
pretty as a picture. She had been pious too, a great 
church-goer, and Tom had been wrapped up in her. 

The witness then went on to tell that, after the 
death of his wife, Tom Ranke had “ sort o’ lost grip ” 
and drifted about a bit, working here and there, but 
always taking his son with him. When Wolfe had 
been about grown, the War had broken out and 
father and son had enlisted. Tom had been killed 
somewhere in the valley of Virginia. And after the 
fighting was over Wolfe had settled on Tuckahoe 
Mountain here-away. Occasionally he would return 
to his old home and look about a bit, but not often. 
Wolfe was a queer, lonesome lot, and always had 
been from a child. His mother had always main- 
tained that the discoloration of his gums was due to 
his grandmother’s having nearly poisoned him acci- 
dentally when he was a baby. She had been a master 
hand to brew all sorts of truck and physic right and 
left, Mrs. Judson had. 

Then Mr. Warner was allowed to step down, and 
the prosecution proved by the Rev. William Dodd, 
pastor of the Ludlow church, that Thomas Ranke 
and Melissa Judson had been duly and honorably 
united in wedlock, by himself, on such a day, in such 
a year, in the presence of witnesses, and under a 


license regularly procured from the clerk of the 
county in which the contracting parties both re- 
sided. 

So far so good, for the prosecution. Ranke’s old 
neighbors began to ruminate and to feel that, per- 
haps, their former views anent him might need re- 
construction. With bucolic clinging to formula, 
they began to consider that should Ranke be de- 
prived of black blood the whole foundation of their 
faith would be destroyed. It was “ blue-gum nig- 
gers ” who were accounted venomous. With Ranke 
cleared of the imputation of admixture, his mother’s 
explanation of the cause of his disfigurement might 
be based in verity. This would alter the case for 
Deane considerably. The killing of a poisonous 
creature who came ravening at one like a mad-dog 
was undeniably self-defense and must be recognized 
as such; but the butchery of an innocuous human 
being because of a rumpus over cards, at mildest, 
was man-slaughter. 

Talcott did not attack the “ blue-gum ” superstition 
and hail it before the populace as a relic of barbar- 
ism conceived of prejudice and ignorance and nur- 
tured by the same, as he might have done in a dif- 
ferent place and among a different people. He was 
too clever a man and too astute a lawyer to prejudice 
his cause by making his audience feel themselves 
censured and ridiculed for crass credulity. There 
is nothing more uneasily sensitive than ignorance, 
interlined with conceit, which is its customary mani- 
festation among the masses. Talcott knew his 
audiences to the finest fibre of their vanity, and so 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE P'ISENOUS!" 


217 


he rebuked them not, neither scorned them. He 
simply set himself to show that certain notions they 
entertained were not applicable to the case in hand. 

When fully satisfied that everything possible had 
been done to establish Ranke’s claim to “ a white 
man’s chance,” the lawyer turned his attention to 
the antecedence and characteristics of the dead 
man’s destroyer. Out of the mouths of matjy wit- 
nesses he proved that the Rutherfords, for genera- 
tions, had been a notoriously imperious, hot-tempered 
race, who could not brook being thwarted in any 
way, and who, when under the influence of passion, 
were prone to strike fiercely and without much re- 
gard for right or consequences. When it came to 
proving Deane’s own inheritance of the family 
peculiarities, Jim Trotter was put on the stand and 
testified so vindictively to that gentleman’s red- 
handed fury and “ outdacious cussedness” when f 
aroused, that the listeners who remembered Jim’s 
own former intimacy with the object of his censure, 
could but marvel that he himself were living to tell 
the tale. Indeed Trotter proved so much, and so 
viciously, that the prosecuting attorney himself dis- 
pensed with his further testimony and turned him 
over to the cross-examination of the defence in some 
disgust. Talcott was saving up the burning of the 
cabin after the committal of the deed as a final 
trump, and it seemed to him that the mountaineer’s 
spite would deprive it of efficacy. 

He thought so more than ever when Trave Mere- 
dith rose to his feet, with his hand clamped to his 
afflicted shoulder, and faced the Court. 


21 8 




In a few pithy sentences Meredith reviewed the 
situation as defined by the prosecution, reminding 
the Court at the same time that his client stood at 
the bar self-arraigned, not to answer for a crime, 
but to explain an act of self -protection which he pro- 
posed, through his counsel, to establish before them 
not only as entirely justifiable, but as absolutely in- 
evitable. He sketched rapidly over Deane Ruther- 
ford’s career from boyhood to the present moment, 
proving for him, despite the violence of temper with 
which he was accredited, a straightforward, manly 
record, whose trend, from the beginning, had been 
upward. Waving Jim Trotter aside for the moment 
he put on the stand others who were willing and 
able to prove that the Rutherfords, so far from be- 
ing feared, or disliked, for their hot-headedness had 
always been popular and respected. And that 
Deane’s father in ’special had been so great a 
favorite that the young man himself was still known 
about his old neighborhood as “ Sam Rutherford’s 
boy.” 

Through Mr. Voss, he proved that Deane’s career 
for the past ten years had been such as any man 
might be proud of, and that he was, as he stood, a 
credit alike to the community and the race. Against 
this he set that which he, himself, knew of Wolfe 
Ranke and the prevalent opinion, even among 
“sports,” that the ways of the deceased had been 
those of neither righteousness nor peace. 

Then he branched off to - the superstition, handling 
it respectfully, as a thing which, while it lay outside 
of general comprehension and had as yet never been 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE P'ISENOUS!" 


219 


subjected to verification, might well be considered 
one of the “ things of heaven and earth ” whose 
origin and nature were unkenned of our philosophy, 
but not on that account to be summarily dismissed. 
He did not pretend to understand or to explain, 
he declared, but only to assert — and he defied any 
to gainsay him — that belief in the venom of a “ blue- 
gum’s ” bite had existed among the people of the 
South for more generations than a man could 
reckon. It might be a theory scientifically demon- 
stratable, or it might be a belief based altogether 
on imagination, but the fact remained that the thing 
had incorporated itself with the thought of the 
people and must be accepted as a factor and allowed 
for, until time should test its value or worthlessness. 

This belief had attached itself exclusively to 
people of African blood because no full-blooded 
white had ever been known to possess gums marked 
as Wolfe Ranke’s had been marked, and as were 
marked the gums of many of the colored race 
scattered through the South. The prosecution had 
claimed for the dead man immunity from admix- 
ture of blood, in Opposition to the general impression 
based on the race sign-manual. The defense held 
that popular instinct had been correct, and that in 
accrediting the deceased with a black drop they had 
spoken within the truth. In proof of this he would 
produce witnesses who would carry Ranke’s family 
records a little further back into the past. 

Then to the astonishment of the defendant, from 
whom this development had been kept hidden, the 
sheriff produced from an inner room three new wit- 


220 




nesses, a grim-visaged and tormented looking gentle- 
man, a slender, graceful young woman, clad in a 
close fitting suit of dark blue cloth, and a withered 
old negress, bent nearly double, and looking, despite 
her respectable turban and neat white apron, as if 
she had stepped out of a mummy case. 

Joyce was sworn first, and gave briefly an account 
of her own interest having been excited in this mat- 
ter of the “blue-gum ” superstition; and of how she 
had gone to Aunt Venus, seeking general informa- 
tion, and had unearthed in the quest a story which 
appeared to have bearing on the case now before 
the Court. This story Aunt Venus would tell them. 

Then she gave place to the old woman, but stood 
close beside her, holding one of the withered black 
claws in her daintily gloved hand and bending 
down from time to time to encourage the witness to 
speak more distinctly. She did not glance toward 
Rutherford, although through her lashes she saw 
him plainly enough, nor did she look at her brother, 
who stood near her, lowering. She kept her lids 
lowered, and when forced to raise them looked 
straight at the judge or at Lawyer Meredith. 

For Deane, he followed her every moment with 
his eyes, and when she spoke bent forward to catch 
each syllable, unwitting that his expression was 
such that those who ran might read. His heart was 
filled with a very passion of love and gratitude, for 
he divined that she was there to help him. And 
the Court, and the people around about, thrilled in 
sympathy, not understanding at all, but feeling that 
this outward drama concealed another, as the calyx 


“/ KNOW'D HE WERE P'ISENO US! ” 


221 


enfolds the bud. In their quickened interest they 
held themselves motionless, and hearkened as 
though their very salvation depended on the 
strength of their ears. 

Aunt Venus told the story of the “blue-gum” 
owned by Joyce’s grandfather in almost the same 
words she had used in narrating it to the young 
lady, bringing out the mule incident strong, and 
also the, more than suspected, biting of the two 
children. She added to her narrative the additional 
information that the white woman who had lived 
with Wolfe after his manumission had been called 
Melissa Brown, and that their little daughter had 
borne the same first name. Aunt Venus further 
stated that talking over the old times had re- 
awakened her own interest in them to such an ex- 
tent that she had made inquiries among her own 
color in regard to what had become of the woman 
and her children after Wolfe’s death, and her own 
subsequent flitting. 

The system of intelligence among negroes passes 
belief, so thorough and comprehensive is it, and so 
manifold are their sources of information. Aunt 
Venus had learned without trouble that Melissa 
Brown, calling herself by the name assumed by the 
ex-slave, and passing for a respectable widow, had 
settled in Johnson County in Tennessee, and that 
her son, who had been marked in the mouth like his 
sire, had died while still a boy. 

Fred Ruthven substantiated the old woman’s story 
out of his grandfather’s plantation records, and at 
command of the Court in especial read aloud that 


222 




statement regarding the “ singular death of my 
white mule, Judy.” The cross-examination by the 
prosecution only refreshed everybody’s memory and 
brought to light additional facts, all of which went 
to establish a connection by lineal descent, between 
Wolfe Ranke, the blue-gummed dweller on Tucka- 
, hoe Mountain and Wolfe Judson, the blue-gummed 
manumitted slave of the Ruthvens. That Tom 
Ranke had been ignorant that the woman he had 
married had mixed blood was clearly proven by the 
fact that he had gone through a ceremony with her 
in regular form, which would not have been possible 
had the secret of her birth been known. 

When these facts, one after another, were brought 
to light, the blacksmith, despite his position of re- 
sponsibility, could not forbear from casting glances 
of open triumph in the direction of Terry Smoot, 
nor from muttering in the ear of Nat Clarke, who 
sat next him, “I know'd he were p’isenous from the 
fust.” 


“ GENTLEMEN , DO YOUR DUTY." 


223 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“ GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY, DO YOUR DUTY.” 

After a short but necessary recess the prosecu- 
tion had another innings and Talcott fought with all 
the strength that was in him for a verdict of man- 
slaughter. From the moment that the Court had 
become satisfied that Ranke’s blood had been mixed, 
the lawyer felt that his chance for success was small. 
He would have to battle against prejudices of the 
strongest, in behalf of a thing which was, relatively, 
of little account in the eyes of the class largely 
represented in the jury. 

Human life has precious little sanctity in the eyes 
of a primitive community where it is freely staked 
on almost any hazard Talcott knew well enough 
that a claim for punishment based on the bare fact 
of the killing would weigh not a feather with the 
jury. Deane frankly acknowledged thejdlling, and 
was in no whit disturbed by it, nor in truth was the 
community. If an impression was to be made it 
must be through arousing another and equally 
strong set of prejudices. If the life of a man’s body 
was held in scant respect, the body itself was suffi- 
ciently regarded. In all cases possible it must be 
treated with reverential consideration, and above 
all, be granted decent and orderly interment. The 


224 


burning of Ranke’s body the prosecution felt to be 
their sole remaining trump, and Talcott played it 
boldly, hoping almost against hope to turn there- 
with the final trick. The jury must be made to feel 
individual responsibility in the matter because of 
Ranke’s isolation, and the fact that he had no one 
to stand by him and take his part for love’s sake. 

Meredith hearkened to the eloquence of the op- 
position with a twinkle in his eye and a kind of 
twitch about his mouth which made Talcott feel 
uneasy. A sudden sense of tilting against wind- 
mills oppressed him. What if he should be striking 
all these good blows in the wrong place ? 

In due season his wily adversary convinced him 
that this fatuity had been his. Meredith calmly 
informed the Court that his client’s complicity with 
the affair ended with the killing, and that he would 
prove this by a couple of witnesses who had previ- 
ously, and legitimately, been suspected of knowl- 
edge of the matter. Without more ado, therefore, 
he had Miriam Watts brought forward and sworn. 

Popular interest, which had flattened out under 
the delay and diversion incident to the recess, now 
pulled itself together and bobbed up alertly. Curi- 
ous glances were fastened on the witness, who 
seemed defiant and ill at ease, and necks were 
craned for her evidence. 

By a system of thumb-screwing known to good 
criminal practice the following story was elicited: 
The woman’s acquaintance with the deceased dated 
back to his settlement on the mountain and had 
been, relatively, familiar, since she had, from time 


“ GENTLEMEN , DO YOUR DUTY." 


225 


to time, been employed by the “ blue-gum ” to attend 
to certain household matters for him, and also to 
make and mend. Her cabin was a short two miles 
from his, but around the shoulder of the mountain, 
and therefore out of even “ smoke-sight.” On one 
or two occasions, when she had visited the clearing 
on business, Miriam had surprised Ranke counting 
money. Large sums it had seemed to her, and 
always in specie, silver and gold. He had kept it in 
a canvass shot-bag, but in what place of conceal- 
ment she, of course, could only conjecture. 

After his death, when the increase of her own 
poverty by the loss of her husband made money 
appear to her the supreme good, the thought of 
Ranke’s bag of dollars kept coming to her. It 
seemed a sinful waste for good money to be burned 
when there were widows and children in the world 
who needed it. Then the idea formulated that the 
coin might have been hidden somewhere about the 
premises outside of the cabin, and that, as Ranke 
appeared to have no kindred, the treasure would 
justly become the heritage of the finder. She had 
pondered the matter a long time and finally set 
herself to search for the money. For this purpose 
she went to the clearing many times, generally 
choosing the hours before night-fall, and wearing an 
old hat and coat of her husband’s, more, however, 
for convenience than disguise. In twilight she 
might readily be mistaken for a man, particularly 
when debris or bushes partially concealed the fall 
of her scanty dark skirts. She had searched ex- 
haustively, even to digging among the ashes with 


226 




an old spade she had found in the out-house. 
The idea of being mistaken for a “ha’rnt” had 
never crossed her mind until one evening, just on the 
edge of dark, when she had been grubbing among the 
ruins, Jim Trotter had come up the path from the 
ford, preceded by his little crop-eared dog. The 
dog knew her. He was an egg-sucking little var- 
mint, and not three days before she had burned his 
jaws properly for him with a scalding hot egg, in 
requital for unwarranted interference with her 
speckled top-knot, who persisted in laying under the 
ash-hopper, in clear temptation of predatory canines. 
The dog, warned of memory, was terrified at sight 
of her, and had tucked tail and fled away howling. 

Jim, likewise, had been “ skeer'd mighty nigh to 
death,” mistaking her for a “ ha’rnt.” He had 
shrunk together and glared at her, like a plumb 
dazzled luny fool, and when she, not comprehending 
the situation, had advanced, with intent to make 
plausible explanation of her presence, he had thrown 
out his hands, as if to ward her off, and yelled aloud 
in a panic, “God A’mighty! It’s Ranke! Come to 
me arter his money!” And then he had heeled it 
out of the clearing like a clipper, and when she, 
filled with laughter at his terror, got to the old fence 
to look after him, he was jumping down the moun- 
tain side, in the bushes and out, like a hunted 
rabbit. 

At first she had forborne to disabuse Trotter’s 
mind out of frolic, and for the bliss of a malicious 
enjoyment at his expense. For the same reason she 
had played “ha’rnt” more than once to others, and 


4 GENTLEMEN , DO YOUR DUTY: 


227 


had even gone so far as to make a flare in the clear- 
ing one night for the benefit of the hunters across 
the ravine. She was not afraid of “ ha’rnts ” her- 
self. 

Later, when all her own efforts to discover the 
dead man’s hoard proved abortive, she had got 
studying about those words of Jim’s, and com- 
menced to put two and two together, remembering 
that Jim’s prosperity dated to about the time of the 
“ blue-gum’s ” death. It had taken her a long time 
to think the matter into shape, but finally she had 
arrived at the conclusion that if anybody knew 
about Ranke’s death and, above all, about Ranke’s 
money, it must be Jim Trotter. 

She had not mentioned her suspicion, being 
neighborly with the Trotters, and, as she admitted, in 
all probability never would have done so, but Trot- 
ter’s wife had insulted her, in the fall, in a most 
gratuitous fashion. So that “ to pay Lelia out for 
her insurance ” she had let this malignant cat out of 
the bag. 

The woman appeared to feel no shame for the 
part she had played, and would have entered into a 
detailed account of the soap-kettle outrage, supple- 
mented by a fierce tirade against her unaccommo- 
dating neighbor, but the Court cut her short with- 
out ceremony, and she was requested to give place 
with a curtness which filled her with anger which 
vented itself in stormy mutterings, to which no 
human paid the faintest heed. 

The prosecution objected to Jim Trotter’s being 
put on the stand on various flimsy pretexts, which 


228 


— ? 


the judge, whose curiosity was excited, promptly set 
aside, with a testy shrug of his corpulent shoulders. 

When the attorney for the defence got hold of 
him, Jim doubled and twisted like a fox in a thicket, 
but Meredith was used to that sort of behavior and 
cleverly met him at every turn. At last he was 
cornered and forced by a hard and comprehensive 
system of drilling, which enabled the lawyer to drag 
to light facts by the same process that a woodpecker 
employs to pull worms from under the bark, to 
implicate himself in the affair to a considerable ex- 
tent. 

Divested of circumlocution and evasion the Court 
learned that on the day of Ranke’s death, late in the 
afternoon, almost on the edge of dark, Trotter had 
gone to the clearing for the purpose of having a talk 
with the “blue-gum.” He was in considerable 
trouble about a mortgage on his land which was 
threatening foreclosure, and in a bad stress for 
money. He knew that Ranke was on the look-out 
for a horse and thought that if he could persuade 
his neighbor to invest in a certain bay filly he pos- 
sessed, he might stave off his own trouble. He knew 
also that Ranke cast covetous eyes on Deane Ruther- 
ford’s red mare, but was convinced that the money 
had not yet been coined which would buy that 
beauty from her owner. Indeed, Deane had told 
him so the night before when a guest in his — Trot- 
ter’S' — house. 

The storm had cleared, to a great extent, before 
he set out for the clearing, only holding on with an 
occasional spit of snow f or sleet, fiercely delivered. 


“ GENTLEMEN , DO YOUR DUTY." 


229 


The ground was covered with icy particles, and 
frozen hard, like iron; a man’s step made no more 
impression on it than if he had been walking over 
stone. He expected to find Ranke alone, because 
Rutherford, who had proposed to stop by and bid 
farewell to the “blue-gum,” only intended to re- 
main at the clearing half an hour. There were no 
foot-prints about the place, but a light smoke curled 
up from the chimney. The dogs rushed out at him, 
but were easily placated and, receiving no answer 
to his knock, he had lifted the latch and entered. 

To his surprise the place was all put about, the 
chairs upset, lightwood knots scattered over the 
hearth, and an empty barrel lying on its side in the 
middle of the floor with playing cards and money 
around it. He glanced about bewildered and his 
eyes encountered Ranke lying on his bed with his 
face to the wall. He called to him, but received no 
answer, and something in the look of the figure and 
the atmosphere of the place made him all at once 
acutely conscious that the “blue-gum” was not 
asleep. He piled lightwood on the dying fire and 
made a great blaze before stepping across to the 
bed. A very brief examination proved to him that 
Ranke was stone-dead, but ' how long this had been 
the case he, of course, had no means of determin- 
ing. The body was rigid and icy, the eyes were 
half closed and the lips were a trifle drawn back 
from the teeth, as though in a snarl. The counten- 
ance was hideous, and he was glad enough to turn 
away from it, after having satisfied himself that the 
“ blue-gum ” had come to his death by violence. To 


230 




that fact the appearance of the room bore testimony 
as plainly as did the contusion on the dead man’s 
temples. There had been card-playing between 
Ranke and one or more others, and a quarrel which 
had resulted in ‘this. He. did not connect Deane 
with the deed, then or afterward. His idea was 
that some of the roughs the “ blue-gum ” was known 
to consort with down in the valley had been up 
paying him a visit. He had met an ugly, snub- 
nosed fellow at the clearing once or twice himself. 

What puzzled him was that the money should 
have been left. He gathered it all together, hunt- 
ing in every hole and cranny that none should 
escape, and counted it. In silver, notes, and gold 
there were several hundred dollars, more money 
than he had ever seen at one time in his whole life. 
To a poor man it was a fortune — to a man in trouble 
a deliverance. He counted it over and over, squat- 
ting down by the hearth to get the benefit of the 
firelight, and forgetful of the dead owner of it, 
stretched still unburied on his bed. He smoothed 
the notes through his fingers, and turned the glitter- 
ing gold pieces in his palm. The sheen of it got 
into his eyes and blinded them; into his heart and 
set it beating with strange, muffled strokes; into his 
brain and generated hideous thoughts and tempta- 
tions. 

Whose gold was this, now that Ranke was dead ? 
It might be anybody’s — it might be his I Who would 
know? That mortgage — his own stress — and this 
unowned money here in his hands! It seemed 
like 


“ GENTLEMEN , DO YOUR BUT YD 


231 


At this point in his forced confession the man 
broke down utterly and dropped his head on his 
folded arms, all broken up and trembling. 

They let him alone, even when, undismissed, he 
stepped down from the witness stand and made his 
way out of the court-room. The finale could be 
figured out without his help. The temptation had 
proved too strong for him and he had succumbed. 
Later had come remembrance of the other man, or 
men, who, their panics over, might return and dis- 
pute with him the ill-gotten gains. What more 
easy than to ignite the bed-clothes, to pour on 
the floor and the scattered lightwood the contents 
of lamp and oil-can. With the cabin burned 
who could say that the money had not been burned 
also ? 

Meredith’s summing up of the case was felt to be 
a masterly effort. He rose to his feet and leaning 
slightly against the bar with his shoulder clasped 
in his hand, he went over for them in his strange, 
penetrating, flexible accents, the real story of that 
past tragedy. He showed them the boy, so full of 
hope and fellowship, going about among his old 
friends to give and take a hand-clasp and a “ God 
speed ” before he went out into the world to live his 
life according to the strength that had been given 
him. He showed them that meeting in the clearing 
and the cordiality of the wily host bent on wresting 
by fair or foul means from the guest the thing 
which he loved. He showed them the storm which 
had delayed Deane’s departure, the quiet room 
where the pair had eaten together, the great fire 


232 


glowing on the hearthstone and casting a warm 
light over the rude preparations for a “friendly 
game.” He showed them the wily gambler, black- 
leg and cheat, holding back, manipulating the cards 
and plying his unsuspecting guest with the liquor 
which was to unseat perception and blind judgment. 
He showed how Deane had been led on and on, cun- 
ningly, until that last stake had been made, played 
and lost. 

Then, knowing how his audience could appreci- 
ate a man’s love for his horse, he showed them the 
boy’s despair when he realized that his horse, his 
beautiful red mare, was no longer his, but another 
man’s. Then had come wild offers of treble the 
creature’s value, wild pleadings for at least a chance 
to win the mare back, and scoffs on the part of the 
victor. Then the fight, and the hideous attempt of 
the enraged “ blue-gum ” to bury his teeth in his 
opponent’s flesh. 

The lawyer’s wonderfully magnetic voice changed 
with every emotion, giving with its curious inflec- 
tions tones and half-tones of feeling, as the brush 
of a painter will give shadings and gradation of 
color. The listeners pulsed and swayed with him, 
like an instrument cunningly played by the hand of 
a master. They saw that which he intended them 
to see, even to the stunned bewilderment with 
which the boy, changed in a few short hours into a 
man, had gone out from the death chamber, which 
so nearly had been his own, into the storm with 
never a thought for the spoils which a human jackal 
was to come presently and gather up. 


“ GENTLEMEN , DO YOUR DUTY.' 


2 33 


When the last words had been spoken there fell 
silence in the court for a brief space. Then the 
judge gathered himself together and delivered his 
charge to the jury in few words. 

“ Gentlemen of the jury, do your duty.” 

That was all. 

Then the jury trooped out in a body, and almost 
before the door of the jury-room had comfortably 
closed upon the heels of the final talesman, wheeled 
about and trooped in again. The foreman, no less 
a person than Toby Blake, the Tuckahoe black- 
smith, handed a folded paper to the sheriff, who 
stepped forward, and amid an electric silence, read 
aloud the verdict. 

It was: 


JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE. 


234 




CHAPTER XXII. 

THE RUBY HEART. 

Then, and not until then, did Joyce turn her face 
toward Rutherford, looking full at him with a soft 
glow in her beautiful eyes and the slow dawn- 
ing of a smile about her lips, as though in the 
joy of his exculpation she claimed a right to par- 
ticipate. 

Her brother, moved for the nonce out of his 
prejudices and carried off his feet as it were by 
the excitement which thrilled through the court, 
squared himself around so as to shield her from 
observation. And Joyce, taking advantage of the 
shelter thus afforded, and obedient to the impulse 
that was in her, leaned forward from the place 
where she stood and opened her little hand so that 
Deane might see, resting on the fair, white flesh 
of her palm, a ruby heart. Then, when she could 
see by his expression that the message had flashed 
rightly to its appointed place, she closed her fingers 
over the heart again, and suffered her brother to 
take her away and put her into the carriage which 
was waiting to convey her back to Manitoba, in 
company with the venerable dame who that day had 
done them all such yeoman service. 

The people could not make enough of Deane and 


THE RUBY HEART. 


235 


surrounded him on all sides, shaking hands, asking 
questions, pouring in congratulations, and buzzing 
about him with kindliness and such a cyclone of 
words that he was like to go distracted. 

Outside, a party of young fellows, for a frolic, had 
crowned the red mare with flowers, to her no small 
discomfort, and were leading her about the court 
green by a long white ribbon slipped through the 
ring of her halter. She pricked up her pretty red 
ears when she heard Deane’s step, and jerked her- 
self free that she might go to him and rub her head 
against his shoulder with the soft whinnying call 
which meant so much to them both. Then the 
crowd, irrepressible as a crowd always is, caught the 
beauty of the sentiment which bound man and horse 
together, and by a common impulse took off their 
hats and cheered Deane Rutherford and his red 
mare to the echo. 

Deane bared his head and thanked them all, his 
old-time friends and associates, for the justice they 
had done him. And, as soon as he could manage it 
without offence, took himself and his horse away, 
riding out from among the people, as was the in- 
stinct of his mountain rearing, to find some silent 
leafy place where he could realize it all and 
straighten things out with his own soul. 

But in the village they had a jollification at the 
Buck-horn Tavern, with Lawyer Meredith in the 
chair, and the attorney for the prosecution beside 
him, and drank everybody’s health in native apple- 
jack that seemed to fairly embody the moon-beams 
which had presided over its distilling. And the 


2 3 6 




only lack that was felt was the one which Toby 
Blake put into words when he said: 

“Fellows, this here jubilation would e’en-er-bout 
tetch the top notch if so be we-all had Sam Ruther- 
ford an’ the ‘ ole lady ’ to git it into music for us.” 


JOYCE'S MIND IS MADE UP. 


237 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Joyce’s mind is made up. 

Driving homeward through the gathering twi- 
light Joyce was content. She leaned back in her 
corner and gave herself up to happiness and reverie, 
utterly indifferent to the badness of the road in 
places, or the fact that old Aunt Venus, with the 
readily recurrent somnolence of age, indulged at in- 
tervals in most audible napping. Aunt Venus had 
been a trump card, and in all probability had won 
the game for them, therefore she was entitled to 
slumber if so inclined, even when “ settin’ up in de 
white-folks’ car’age ” in company with her young 
lady. 

Joyce was fully conscious that her love affair had 
by no means reached its ultimate. That she would 
be obliged to endure insinuations, strictures and 
many remonstrances. That Uncle Charlie would 
come and talk to her, reinforced by his wife and 
hi? three daughters. That the other uncles and 
aunts would come also, and that all such as were at 
too great distance from Manitoba to spare time 
from business for personal interviews, or who were 
afraid of infection from scarlet fever, would write, 
promptly and at great length. The clan Ruthven, 
in all probability, would arraign her for public and 
private judgment, and singly and collectively, would 


238 


? — 

coax, persuade and reprobate her. Joyce laughed 
to herself to think how she would be voted an apos- 
tate from family precedent and traditions by kins- 
folks whom she scarcely knew, and whose lives 
intersected hers at the one point of a common an- 
cestry, and there alone. 

Joyce cared for it all not the value of a shankless 
button. It would be disagreeable, but it would, 
after all, be transient, and she was too familiar with 
her own sturdiness of grain to admit for an instant 
any possibility of influence. She was sorry that 
her brother would not be satisfied, at first, with her 
choice; but nobody else mattered. Why should 
they? It was her happiness or misery which would 
be involved, not theirs. 

When, on. the previous Monday morning, Fred 
had announced his intention of riding over to 
Tuckahoe Court-House to be present at the trial she 
had longed feverishly to go with him; but could 
frame no decent or plausible excuse. It had seemed 
hard and cruel to be obliged by conventionality to 
stay behind when her heart was strained and her 
soul ravening to see with her own eyes and hear 
with her own ears. Then a way had suddenly been 
opened. Fred, sitting on the porch of the Buck- 
horn Tavern, had overheard a bit of conversation 
which had suggested coincidences to his mind, and 
aroused a train of thought which had ultimated in 
an interview with Lawyer Meredith. The upshot 
of which had been that Fred, in company with Mr. 
Sinclair, junior counsel for the defense, had been 
despatched back to Manitoba in hot haste for the 


JOYCE'S MIND IS MADE UP. 


2 39 


Ruthven plantation records and, if possible, Joyce 
herself and Aunt Venus. 

J oyce had gone gladly, like a bird to its nest, and 
now that, for her, all things were straightened out, 
she leaned back in her corner and watched the 
moonlight come softly and increase until it filled 
the whole earth with a mellow radiance in harmony 
with the beauty of her imaginings. 

And outside, her brother, following the carriage 
on horseback, went over the situation likewise, and 
decided that the better part of wisdom, as well as of 
affection, would be to accept with as little ado as 
possible that which he was powerless to alter. He 
loved his sister tenderly, and was acquainted with 
her nature. Joyce was a strong-mouthed filly, he 
admitted, and when she jerked her head free and 
took the bit between her teeth there was nothing 
for it but to stand clear and let her have the road. 
She would take it anyhow. 

Still, impelled by a sense of family responsibility, 
he made one feeble venture, despite his inward con- 
viction of its futility. After he had helped his sister 
out of the carriage at the Manitoba gate, and 
directed the coachman to drive Aunt Venus to her 
cabin, Fred put his hands on Joyce’s shoulders and 
faced her about in the moonlight so that he could 
look into her eyes. 

“ There is iio use in my saying anything, I sup- 
pose, Joyce,” he observed ruefully. 

And Joyce smiled up at him none the less ten- 
derly for the resolution of her face as she made an- 
swer. 


240 




“ Not the least in the world, brother. My mind 
is made up.” 

After that there was nothing more to be said, for 
that time, at least. So the brother and sister kissed 
each other and proceeded into the house, where 
they found supper waiting and Louise in a ferment 
of curiosity to know how the trial had ended. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


“all’s well that ends well.” 

For many hours after the trial Rutherford was 
detained at the court-house by Lawyer Meredith 
and the other men, for the question arose as to 
whether it would be worth while for the grand 
jury to indict Jim Trotter for arson and theft. The 
matter was openly discussed on the tavern porch, 
for in backwoods communities there is no rigidity 
of official etiquette, and any man who had an opinion 
on the subject freely ventilated the same. The fact 
that Trotter had already had three months in jail, 
coupled with the other facts that a log cabin built 
by a man’s oWn hands from timber cut on the ground 
is not a valuable structure, and that the money 
stolen in reality appe.ared to belong to nobody, since 
all that had not been won from Deane at cards had 
been similarly come by, were felt by the easy-going 
community to be extenuating circumstances. Law- 
yer Meredith summed up the popular estimate of 
the case in a single remark. 

“It was a deuced unhandsome thing to do all 
around,” he declared, tilting his chair back against 
the houseside. “ And of course he’s committed an 
offence which makes him liable to the penitentiary, 


242 




and anybody who feels a call to haul the matter be- 
fore the grand jury can have Trotter indicted. 
But there seems to be nobody with any personal in- 
terest in the affair, no heirs or kindred, and the 
prosecution will cost the State a good deal more 
than Ranke’s land and cabin both are worth, so it 
seems hardly worth while to stir the matter. That 
money was pretty much everybody’s I suppose, 
being won over cards, and cheated for besides most 
likely. Trotter’s spent it too, long ago, and what 
little property he owns himself his family can hold 
as homestead. Jim’s done a dirty trick and his 
neighbors know it, and most probably will 
make him sweat for it, so I reckon the law can 
afford to hold off and leave punishment to popular 
opinion.” 

That which is everybody’s business is nobody’s 
business, so in tolerant Southern fashion the matter 
was allowed to lapse, particularly as Deane Ruther- 
ford, when approached, refused to have anything to 
do with an indictment and even spoke strongly 
against it. 

“No; I won’t appear against Trotter,” he de- 
clared. “ He isn’t a regular thief, and that one 
temptation was sudden and overwhelming. We’ve 
all lived neighbors with Trotter and been friendly, 
so what’s the use of rubbing the shame into his 
family. Give the fellow a chance to pull up, for the 
sake of his wife and children. My temper blazed 
the way for him anyhow. If I hadn’t fought with 
Ranke and killed him Trotter couldn’t have scooped 


“ ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL . ” 243 

up the money and burned the cabin. Besides, hav- 
ing to stand up and own to doing a low meanness 
like that, and show up for a blackguard and thief 
for all time, is about punishment enough for any 
man who isn’t a brute. Trotter is going to have a 
rough time for a good many years to come, or I 
know nothing of human nature in Tuckahoe neigh- 
borhood.” 

The man himself appeared to have the same idea. 
After leaving the court-room he mounted his horse 
and went straight home, riding hard, seeking to out- 
strip the news of his disgrace. His wife was sur- 
prised to see him back so soon, and full of interest 
and inquiries about the trial. He satisfied her as 
well as he could without betraying his own secret, 
and sat among them all, with the youngest baby on 
his knee, feeling strange and alien from himself and 
from them. Once when his wife paused near him, 
asking some question, he looked up at her wistfully, 
and put out 'his hand and touched hers. After 
awhile he rose, and saying something about stepping 
over to the saw-mill to see how things were getting 
on, took his gun from the hooks above the door and 
went out. His wife watched him slouching across 
the yard and the little corn-field, with the gun 
on his shoulder, and noticed how heavily he walked 
and that as he crossed the rail fence at the farther 
side of the lot he paused and turned to look back at 
his home. She thought he might be ailing, and 
called to her eldest daughter to toast the coffee 
extra well and have it hot and strong for supper; 


244 




her “ Pappy looked tired an’ would be proud o’ his 
coffee, an’ feel ’freshed up by it.” 

Trotter did not return that evening, nor the next 
day, and when the men at the saw-mill were inter- 
viewed they had seen nothing of him. The news 
of the scene in the court-room had come up to them 
by that time; but none as yet had summoned up 
courage to tell the missing man’s wife. Toby 
Blake’s wife had gone over to the Trotters purposely 
to do it, thinking that she might soften the blow 
somewhat to her old friend, but after a short visit 
she returned to the smithy openly announcing her- 
self inadequate to the task. When it was known 
through the neighborhood that Jim was missing 
there was but one opinion shared by all alike, 
and even by Jim’s own sore and much humiliated 
sons. It was felt that Jim had “ skipped the county,” 
and so no effort was made to penetrate the secret of 
his disappearance. 

It was Miriam Watts who brought to light the 
real truth of the matter. On the third day after 
Jim’s disappearance she hurried across the yard at 
Trueheart’s store and thrust herself in among the 
men there congregated with a pale, scared counte- 
nance, and a tale in her mouth that turned the stout- 
est of them sick and shivery. She had been in the 
woods after bark for dye making, she affirmed, 
and had taken the direction of Ranke’s clearing 
because she wanted walnut bark especially and 
the woods about the clearing abounded in walnut 
timber. 


“ ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELLE 


245 


While she chopped she noticed the buzzards pass- 
ing, one after another, until she had counted more 
than a dozen, all flying low and in one direction. 
Somebody had lost a hog or a yearling thereabout, 
she thought, and having a few head of stock at large 
in the woods herself, she had shouldered her ax 
and followed the hideous convoy, minded to sat- 
isfy her mind, if possible, as to who might be the 
loser. 

When she got to the clearing, she had found the 
body of a man, lying face downward amid the ruins 
of the burned cabin, with his gun beside him. The 
remains were in a pitiable condition, but she knew 
the dead man for Jim Trotter, and felt sure that re- 
morse and shame for his unhappy deed had carried 
the wretched man to the scene of its enactment, 
there to terminate his own existence. 

The woman had been terrified and sickened, but 
had pulled together courage and humanity enough 
to protect the body with rails and brush before com- 
ing away to summon the neighbors together to do 
that which was needful. And the men, with the in- 
stinctive delicacy which develops sometimes from 
close contact with nature in God’s solitudes, made 
things as decent and seemly as might be before 
they took the dead man to his home. 

They forbore also from many words about the 
event, either then or afterward, for Trotter’s family 
were well liked in the district and the people 
had no wish to hurt them more than might be 
needful. 


246 


So they bared their heads quietly and folded 
their lips together, for the mystery of death, like a 
mantle with borders, enfolds alike those accounted 
righteous and those held of the community of sin- 
ners, and covers all from criticism and overt unkind 
judgment. 

* * * * * * * * * 

On the afternoon of the third day following the 
trial Rutherford, having straightened out matters 
to his satisfaction at the Winock factory, saddled 
his red mare and took the road to Manitoba. 
It was a day such as the Southland gives us, 
soft and slumbrous, with a sky of sapphire and 
an atmosphere quick with the breath of honey- 
suckle and roses. The trees, in full leafage, met 
overhead, making an archway for the old plantation 
road which stretched out like a dusk brown ribbon 
with a broidery on either edge of dainty green 
and colors, where grass and rock-ferns grew beside 
the wall, and Indian pinks and Columbines made 
braveries of crimson and scarlet and yellow. 

Deane rode in happiness and peace, for to his 
love he was going as a man assured. And where- 
fore not ? Had she not stood up for him in open 
day, and afterward shown him that she knew that 
she held his heart in her hand ? And holding it so, 
had she not closed her white fingers over it, one by 
one, as over a valued treasure ? What more could 
man desire ? Only that to which the red mare was 


“ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL." 247 

bearing him, stepping daintily, despite her years, 
and arching her handsome neck and tossing her red 
front like a filly. 

J oyce was in the beautiful old hall when he came, 
and awaited him there, standing amid the relics of 
a past made suggestive and satisfying by wealth and 
culture. She watched the door for her lover’s com- 
ing with no thought of the race grown old in its own 
place. 

But Deane, as he entered the beautiful hall with 
its lofty ceiling of hand-wrought wood, its wain- 
scoted walls set close with family portraits and its 
century-old plenishings, placed against it, involun- 
tarily, in his own mind, a tiny smoke-dried cabin 
among the hills, filled with the homely things which 
surround a people in their beginnings. Being the 
man he was, the contrast amused and stimulated 
him — from that he, by sheer manhood, had reached 
this. With a smile on his lips, and a masterful joy 
in his heart, he advanced to meet the woman com- 
ing .to him in the center of the place. 

Joyce said no words, only looked up at him with 
her soul in her eyes and, meeting the answer which 
burned in his, let him fold his arms about her and 
draw her close with the long, lingering kisses which 
love knows, and the whispered words of exquisite 
tenderness. 

And upon it all the ancestors, perforce, looked 
down, with mirth or gloom as the artists had 
elected to represent them. And Fred, beholding 
the red mare fastened beside the gate, whistled 


2 4 8 — ? - 

under his breath and then sighed, but smiled again 
when his wife drew near and slipped her hand in 
his. 

For who shall dictate or control while youth is 
youth, and “love is still the lord of all.” 


THE END. 



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